Hello all. I’ve been thinking off and on for a while now about a scenario centered around some sort of alternative to MARKET-GARDEN that would make for an interesting thread, but also stand up to a plausibility check. While I had a certain idea in my head for a while, I wondered about the plausibility of the basic premise until I ran across this passage from Charles MacDonald’s volume The Siegfreid Line Campaign in the United States Army in World War II series, about German preparations in Belgium and Holland:
“Having received a report on 11 September that the Allies were assembling landing craft in British ports, Model reasoned that this meant a seaborne invasion of the Netherlands. Reports as late as the morning of 17 September, D-Day for Operation MARKET, of "conspicuously active" sea and air reconnaissance of the Wadden Islands off the Dutch coast fed both Model's and Rundstedt's apprehension. Both believed that the Allies would drop airborne troops in conjunction with a seaborne invasion. Even as Allied paratroopers and glidermen were winging toward the Netherlands, Rundstedt was ordering a thorough study of the sea- and air-landing possibilities in northern Holland. The results were to be reported to Hitler.”
So the premise is this: Air-drop the entire First Allied Army north of the Neder Rijn, with one division dropping immediately outside of Amsterdam and one outside Rotterdam with the objectives to move into and through the cities to seize as much port facilities as possible, assisted by Dutch Underground uprising in those cities. The third division drops in the space between the cities, with the primary objective to seize Schipol airfield and then orient eastward in a defensive posture.
At the same time, conduct a three-division seaborne assault in the vicinity of The Hauge with those units tasked to spread out, link up with the three airborne divisions to reinforce and consolidate to then begin an advance eastward. According to MacDonald, the Germans had stripped the operational units from this area in order to support the front line in Belgium. Follow on forces would include an armored division or two (over the beach), the British 52d Airmobile Division via Schipol, and the Polish Brigade as a reserve.
The advantage here is that you immediately place 9+ divisions across the Neder Rijn, and assuming that you capture at least one of the three port areas intact enough to place in operation within a few days a sufficient logistical capacity. You can advance eastwards without the major river obstacles in the original plan; in fact as your right flank moves east it can cut off German lines of communication and retreat across the Neder Rijn back towards Germany.
Like I said, it seems plausible if Model and Rundstedt considered it possible, correct? It certainly seems to at least make as much sense as the plan IOTL.
“Having received a report on 11 September that the Allies were assembling landing craft in British ports, Model reasoned that this meant a seaborne invasion of the Netherlands. Reports as late as the morning of 17 September, D-Day for Operation MARKET, of "conspicuously active" sea and air reconnaissance of the Wadden Islands off the Dutch coast fed both Model's and Rundstedt's apprehension. Both believed that the Allies would drop airborne troops in conjunction with a seaborne invasion. Even as Allied paratroopers and glidermen were winging toward the Netherlands, Rundstedt was ordering a thorough study of the sea- and air-landing possibilities in northern Holland. The results were to be reported to Hitler.”
So the premise is this: Air-drop the entire First Allied Army north of the Neder Rijn, with one division dropping immediately outside of Amsterdam and one outside Rotterdam with the objectives to move into and through the cities to seize as much port facilities as possible, assisted by Dutch Underground uprising in those cities. The third division drops in the space between the cities, with the primary objective to seize Schipol airfield and then orient eastward in a defensive posture.
At the same time, conduct a three-division seaborne assault in the vicinity of The Hauge with those units tasked to spread out, link up with the three airborne divisions to reinforce and consolidate to then begin an advance eastward. According to MacDonald, the Germans had stripped the operational units from this area in order to support the front line in Belgium. Follow on forces would include an armored division or two (over the beach), the British 52d Airmobile Division via Schipol, and the Polish Brigade as a reserve.
The advantage here is that you immediately place 9+ divisions across the Neder Rijn, and assuming that you capture at least one of the three port areas intact enough to place in operation within a few days a sufficient logistical capacity. You can advance eastwards without the major river obstacles in the original plan; in fact as your right flank moves east it can cut off German lines of communication and retreat across the Neder Rijn back towards Germany.
Like I said, it seems plausible if Model and Rundstedt considered it possible, correct? It certainly seems to at least make as much sense as the plan IOTL.
