“Which is why he found himself sitting idle after having outrun his supply lines.”
He KNEW he was, but he hoped to get the gas to keep going due to his success. His men also stole gas shamelessly. He wasn’t stupid about logistics. He didn’t pay too much attention to the detail because he had great staff officers to work the details.
We’ll never know what would have happened if he had been given higher command. Bradley hated his guts. Eisenhower liked him but Ike was a politician first and foremost. He sucked at strategy and combat planning. Monty and Patton agreed on Eisenhower being stupid about strategy.
As happens too often, the US military ran WW2 with one eye and sometimes two on pleasing the press and the politicians. And of course, trying to keep allied with our questionable allies.
Ike was in charge of managing the alpha personalities in the ETO and keeping them focused on fighting the Germans instead of each other. He didn’t design strategy. His job was to implement it.
General George Marshall was Ike’s boss. Admiral William Leahy was Marshall’s boss. FDR was Leahy’s boss. Overall strategy was set at that level. Logistics is a huge portion of war strategy, far more than most civilians realize. Patton paid zero attention to logistics. It wasn’t his job. It wasn’t his staff’s job. Patton did things like hijacking other army’s gas supplies which had ripple effects all through the theater.