Exactly how many of those immeadialty went on to other locations in Holland depends on which source you read. In early to mid September the number present on those areas was between 20,000 & 40,000 men in organized combat units. Until it was clear the Candians had stopped for thlong run the 15th Army regarded the movement as through Walchern/Beveland not into it. Up to about 12 September I understand between half & a third of those were still south of the Scheldt.Gooner1 wrote:
Moved across the Scheldt from Terneuzen and
Breskens from 4 – 23 Sep 44:
86,100 men
616 guns
6,200 horses
6,200 vehicles
6,500 bicycles
Add to that the men in the Breskens and Walcheren festung , throw in the Panzer units that were historically used against Market Garden and I think your idea that the Scheldt estuary can be taken in two weeks to be rather optimistic.
Look at a map. The mechanized corps that interfered with MG were 40 to 100 km from the road junction of Brasschat & Woensdrecht north of Antwerp. To reach there they would be making a march back towards the Allied army with all the attendant risk of being caught by air strikes, in terrain with few woods or orchards to hide in during the day. Then they have a narrow area that is vulnerable. To be of any use further west on the islands they have to load onto ferrys and move onto a battlefield crisscrossed by dykes & drainage ditches, and with nearly zero woods or orchards for concealment.
Any large scale reinforcement of this battlefield removes the small German mechanized reserves from the routes the Allies would use to hook into the lower Rhineland. And, it would place them in a position to be pocketed were the British 2d Army to advance. While we with hindsight know this would not be possible until October the Germans had no firm grasp of this.
Well, someone expected to be able to carry on all the way to at least the Ruhr with the supplies at hand in September. But more to the point that buildup of supply will go faster in October/November with the average daily discharge of 13,000+ tons per day thru Antwerp (the low estimate for 19 Nov - 19 Dec 1944) on top of the 5,000 to 6,000 tons per day hauled overland to the 2d Army in September. Antwerp had a potiential discharge rate of between 80,000 & 100,000 tons per day. The trick was the two month delay in opening it also delayed the material staged in the US and Britan for rebuilding Belgums railroads. The port operations commander had to reduce the intake in late December after a surge 20,000 tons per day because clearing the cargo was slower than the intake. Anyway the point is opening Antwerp can more than double the supply to 21st Army Group in October. A second point is the Belgian railroads will be at adaquate capacity by December vs late Febuary or March of OTL. That resolves the other half of the Allied supply problem.Pyhlo wrote:Yes - but a combined operation open the Scheldt first would add ITS POL, munitions etc. cost to what had then to be built up again.
[/quote="Von Schadewald"]
How comes the Germans didn't blow up Antwerp docks, or at least the cranes? Were they short of explosives?! [/quote]
Found one remark about this. The locks to the "wet basins" were demolished. I am guessing these were drydocks and the cannal entries. The 625 cranes on the docks are described as intact.
For the numbers above I am drawing on extracts from the US Army Green Book 'Logistical Support of the Armies Vol I' and misl material in the 'Normandy Case Study' of the Command & Staff College reading material.
[/quote="Phylo"]A successful Market Garden and advance after that would have in effect bypassed Antwerp...thus making the position of the defenders in the Scheldt Estuart completely untenable. This was not "Festung Scheldt", there had not been the years of fortification and stockpiling put into the islands etc. as into the Channel Ports.[/quote]
Hitler designated many other locations a Festung & required the unfortunates trapped there to fight on without adaquate preperation. For far less reason than holding the Scheldt closed. No reason for him to be stricken with the idea that this position is untenable and the 15th Army wont be required to leave some sort of defense there. The 15th Army had already been directed to establish a corps size defending force there and those orders do not seem to have been changed when XXX Corps cut deep into Holland. Even with the limited preperations of three week the defenders of Walchern/Beveland managed to resist for approx a month.