Posted on 05/25/2010 10:28:33 AM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
The “Schlieffen redux” was the original plan to attack France in 1939/1940.
The “left hook” running the panzers through the Ardennes was the “radical” plan. Nobody expected the French and the Brits to cave so fast.
It's more focused on the internal politics of the US, but goes into some detail regarding FDR and "unconditional surrender". Apparently, Churchill wasn't even consulted prior to FDR blurting it out at Casablanca.
The left hook isn’t a radical departure of the Schlieffen plan. It’s a part of the plan.
They followed pretty much the exact same course they did in ‘14, except that they were able to execute the maneuvers properly with tanks and mechanised forces.
What was radical is rolling them through the Ardennes because the school of thought was that they were impassable to tanks.
we were nowheres near ready for a cross-channel invasion in 42 or 43 ... we were still fighting for the first vestiges of air superiority ... we were very in-experienced ... the germans would blown us away ...
That’s exactly why Stalin wanted us to invade in 42 or 43. We would have lost and would not be able to prevent the Soviets from swallowing the whole European peninsula.
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