You're really reaching now. I doubt anyone had any problem with understanding the sense of what he was saying.
Rich - I KNOW that you know that "north and north
west" of Folkestone and Dover is dry land...
I've a feeling Gooner realised full well and several posts ago what his mistake was. But...
And? That's ANOTHER entirely irrelevant answer, irrelevant to your claim that the NZEF would, by the date of INSTRUCTION No.4, have been counterattacking somewhere like Brighton.
You seem to focused on dueling irrelevancies at the expense of anything pertinent.
...I didn't post up that particular irrelevancy first...and Gooner, as with the geographical issue above, chose not to let go of it.
And you continue to miss the even more vital point that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. The friction impeding MILFORCE and 2 NZ's movements will be no different than those impeding those of the Germans...probably less so in one sense, since the Germans necessarily have the friction imposed by an airborne landing to deal with.
Rich, friction in itself isn't the issue -
time is - not forgetting of course the full time that it will take 2NZ to reach and relieve....or re-take....RAF Lympne; remembering that we don't actually know how long it would take enough intelligence to reach Freyberg (
IF it was up to Freyberg to decide which "Plan" to action) ....or reach
whoever was to make the decision where to send him.
As noted previously to Clive Mortimore - the British are, very soon after dawn on S-Day, going to start receiving word from various sources of German airborne landings
plural...
THREE in the first wave. The defenders will be getting reports from the units in direct contact with the FJ, such as the defenders of the crossings on the RMC; from RAF Hawkinge; from any Home Guard units reporting a drop in their immediate area...and from the "civilian" reporting side - locals phoning the police etc..
It's going to take x-amount of time to receive enough intelligence to make an evaluated and correct judgement on
where to send 2NZ/MILFORCE I.E.
which "Plan" to action....the only advantage being that the first two thirds' of 2NZ's trip south-east from Maidstone applies equally to Plan B and Plan C...
THEN the transit time from Maidstone south to Charing/Ashford cuts in - and
THEN any time taken to clear the area held by the FJ's blocking force. We know approximately how long it would take the main 2NZ force to move forward from the Maidstone area to the Sellindge area
in best circumstances, with no delays - what unfortunately we DON'T know is how long it would take whoever was responsible for ordering 2 NZ to commence operations that morning to do so
BEFORE that...or how long it would take to clear the area between Sellindge and Lympne
AFTER that.
But it all adds up.
Meanwhile - remember the discussion(s) in the other now-closed thread about the map in Schenk and exactly
how close to the easternmost crossings over the RMC the German beachlanding forces were to land?
Okay, so if I understand it, the advance guard can't move until the main body moves, at which point it scoots down the road to stay out of range of the main body's bubble. Interesting interpretation. So then if the main body doesn't move, then everyone just sits on their hands?
Well, unless there's anything in INSTRUCTION NO.4 that we haven't been told about yet regarding any
independent action that MILFORCE could take in the absence of the main force...
OF COURSE if on S-Day someone decides not to order 2NZ into the field, or if something major happens to hang them up on the road south from Maidstone - then
someone is going to have decide to send MILFORCE elsewhere....between the geographical limits of "Sheerness to Dymchurch Redoubt".
But as above, it's going to take some time for events to unfold and for enough intelligence to reach Brooke (or whoever) for him/them to make an evaluated decision as to what to do with/where
best to send MILFORCE in the absence of 2NZ. Without the several battalions of infantry of 2NZ....as noted previously MILFORCE is a lot of tanks, and just one company of infantry, a battery of assorted gunners and some signallers. It's not the large two-infantry brigade-with-armour counterattacking force that Freyberg's whole force, including MILFORCE, would have been - and can't be used in the same way.
The only
general guidance we have about where MILFORCE could possibly be used - unless there's something else in INSTRUCTION No.4 we haven't seen yet - is...as noted above...
this; given that MILFORCE was under the command of 2NZ at that point -
4. Tasks in general.
The tasks of N.Z. Div. in order of priority are:
(a) to counter attack vigorously any enemy landing in 1 Lon.
Div. area, especially in the area North and N.W. of DOVER
and FOLKESTONE.
(b) To re-establish the line of ROYAL MILITARY CANAL eastwards
of HAM STREET.
(c) Concurrently with the above, to deal with any hostile air
borne landings in the area SITTINBOURNE - FAVERSHAM -
CHARING - MAIDSTONE.
(Discounting (c) as we know there were to be no such landings)
Believe me, if there were back-up orders for MILFORCE about that to do if the main force didn't come trundling down the A20 I'd be
very happy to see them. For it would tell us more about the strategic thinking of the defenders. But I've a feeling that it would be a case of orders being cut on the day depending on circumstances; there are just
so many alternatives you can foresee and prepare for.
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