Operation Goodwood: Encyclopedia II - Operation Goodwood - Planning

Operation Goodwood - Planning

At a meeting with General Montgomery on July 10th, the Second Army commander, General Miles Dempsey proposed the Goodwood plan. This was the same day Montgomery approved Operation Cobra.

Goodwood's starting point was the inescapable fact that the British Army was incapable of replacing its high Infantry losses at the rate they were taking casualties in Normandy. On the other hand, the Second Army had three armored divisions ashore (the 7th Armoured Division, Guards Armoured Division, and 11th Armoured Division with a surplus of tanks. By mid-July the British had 2,250 medium tanks and 400 light tanks in the bridgehead in their three armored divisions and numerous independent tank brigades. Starting with the premise that the Second Army could afford to lose tanks, but not men, a plan was devised to break through the German positions east of the Orne and north of Caen. Goodwood would be the largest armoured assault yet seen in western Europe. The operation was planned to begin July 18, two days before the planned start of Operation Cobra. In contrast to the plan, Cobra did not in fact begin until July 25.

Though it was expected to be costly in terms of tanks and crews, Dempsey had high hopes of a breakthrough. The main force would be the armoured divisions of the British VIII Corps led by General Richard O'Connor: the 11th, the 7th Desert Rats and the Guards. The 11th's targets were Bras, Hubert-Folie, Verrieres, and Fontenay; the 7th's Garcelles-Secqueville; and the Guards would push through around Cagny and Vimont. The target was to push the Germans from the higher ground of the Bourguebus Ridge. A Canadian force would cover the east flank and British infantry the west flank. Artillery support would come from over 700 tubes firing over 250,000 rounds.

The Allied attack had several major planning flaws: First, to mount the attack all three armored divisions had to cross two water obstacles and a minefield prior to crossing the start line. The Orne River and the Caen Canal ran laterally across the British front, directly in the path of the armored divisions. Six small bridges were available to move over 8,000 vehicles, including tanks, artillery, mechanized Infantry, Engineers, and support vehicles such as ammunition and fuel supply vehicles, medical units, and so forth. It was obvious that a traffic control problem would ensue. Dempsey's proposed solution was disastrous - he directed his Corps Commander (O'Connor) to move the tanks ahead, leaving behind everything else including Infantry, Engineers, Artillery etc until all the tanks were across. Thus the British combined-arms team was broken up before the Germans fired a shot.

Having crossed over the bridges, a British minefield laid only days before by the 51st Highland Division had to be traversed. The minefield was a mix of antitank and antipersonnel mines. This obstacle could have been overcome by strong engineer support prior to the battle. However, because the Germans had the minefield under observation from the steelworks, a major mineclearing operation would have alerted them to the attack. In the event, several one-tank wide gaps were cleared in the minefield at night. It was known that this would further constrain the movement of Corps vehicles.

Second, the issue of tactical surprise was mishandled. Moving the armored units to their attack positions too early, or gapping the minefield too early, would alert the Germans to the attack. In hindsight we can see that the armor moved too late: the hundreds of tanks were horribly slowed by the bottle-neck of the bridges and minefield. Again, to preserve surprise, artillery units were not moved forward to support the attack. However, Ultra decrypts of German signals, as well as the Second Army's own intelligence estimates, revealed that by July 15th the Germans were well aware of the time and place of the attack and were reinforcing their defenses. At this point, since tactical surprise had been lost, the minefields could have been more thoroughly cleared and units moved up into attack positions without ill effects - but this was not done.

Third, the 11th Armored Division was over-tasked. Although the lead unit in the attack, the Division was also given the mission of clearing the front-line villages of Cuverville and Demouville. These should have been bypassed by the lead units and left for following units - virtually a standard tactic in any army by 1944. Instead, while the Division's tank battalions attacked Bourgebus ridge, the Infantry battalions were clearing villages. This slowed down both attacks and further broke up combined-arms integrity.

Fourth, fire support planning was poor. Artillery units were left west of the Orne, placing the main German defensive position on Bourgebus ridge out of their range. Coordination between field artillery and tanks was poor.

Finally, the terrain was poorly chosen. The area was filled with small villages, each of which had a small German garrison of infantry, armour and artillery connected by tunnels. The area was thus divided into a series of strongpoints overlooking the intended Allied line of advance. The high ground of the Bourgebus ridge, with numerous dug-in German heavy weapons, overlooked a clear field of fire into the path of the intended advance.

These problems were apparent in the planning stage.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Planning", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki