EKB wrote:That seems to be one of the potted excuses. But it doesn't make sense that Allied planners could be so ignorant, because they expected to have superior numbers, superior offensive firepower, and complete control of the skies over the battlefield. Most of the time, they did. That is not a situation that would, by any stretch, encourage the enemy to fight out in the open.
It is not a "potted excuse"; it is an extremely well-documented reason, based upon the experience the Allies had to that point. The course of events in an amphibious assault against a German-held coast was: Allies land, Germans execute immediate Panzer counterattack, Allies hang on to the beachhead, Germans retreat to more defensible positions that protect the German heartland (or at least the route to it).
The problem with trying to hang onto the very defensible terrain of Normandy is that it is a very thin crust, very close to the coastline. Once it is penetrated, there is actually no really good contiguous defensive terrain until the old World War I battlefields of northeastern France and Belgium are reached - the Seine-Loire river line for example is almost completely indefensible; too many reentrants.
And, given that the cost of attempting to defend Normandy was that the Germans were incapable of halting the Allied advance before reaching the German fixed frontier defenses, I would venture to say the Allied analysis was correct. Where they failed was in not recognizing that much of the German strategic calculus was not based on good sense, but on intuition.
From air photos alone, it is obvious that French bocage country was the next best thing to a forest or jungle as a place to hide from observation. That factor was critical to the continued existence of the German Army (or for that matter, any outnumbered enemy in a similar predicament) so it follows they might make a stand in the bocage.
That may be, but except for that rather small bit of France the rest of it was rather exposed and rather far from Germany.
Yes I know, but I was also wondering about the information exchange with the Americans concerning Operation Ariel.
I don't know if information from the British skedaddle experience was used, but certainly the peculiar nature of the terrain was well-known. However, that does not mean the strengths of the terrain as a defensive position were well understood, which would have been difficult, since I don't think major battles had been fought in the region since Formigny...