>leave that chap Rommel to me!
>>1445435
>let me know if you need any help
>>1445435
In addition to having a larger force, he really did outmaneuver Rommel pretty badly at El Alamein.
>>1445435
>>1445451
>No worries, I got this.
>>1445452
he also forced the notsies and their tanks to starve from of supply shortage and never allowed them respite. he hardly needed a battlefield anymore once he wat them into the desert
>>1445466
To be honest, a lot of the supply problems were from Rommel's poor planning. He had considerable supplies delivered to Tripoli, and didn't really have the means to move them further east with ease and reliability.
There's a reason Halder advised Rommel not to pursue further than about 200 km all the way back in Sommnenblume (or however you spell it)
>>1445470
Rommel also knew he couldn't just hold against them. Playing it cautious, defensive, and stationary would have played perfectly into the Brits' hands.
One of those rare true instances of not enough strength to defend, so attack.
>>1445484
And lose hard, then lose 300k men.
>>1445484
But he could have easily done an elastic, mobile defense inside Cyrenica. It would have been a lot more effective too, as his fuel and pursuit situation would have been much better.
I mean sure, it would have eventually crumbled, but he was in a tertiary front, his entire job was to hold off the Allies and prop up Italy's southern border for as long as possible, as cheaply as possible.
Going off on some half baked attack plan when you don't have the logistical tail to support it isn't going to help that. Remember, that even if you somehow win at El ALamein, you've got another 500 or so kilometers to go before you can even touch Suez, and there's going to be at least one more qatarra line, as well as the nile for the British to hide behind, and with actual railroads in Egypt, they can bring a hell of a lot more men to bear than they ever could in the Libyan desert.
Yes, he was doomed from the get-go, if you define victory or defeat based solely on the final outcome of that theater. But Germany was never staking her war plans on winning in North Africa, the entire thing was a defensive war from the minute Rommel was sent over. Rommel either didn't understand the overall strategic situation or was too egotistical to go in a minor front, neither of which reflect well on him.
>>1445497
Your reasoning is solid, but that strategy could have still backfired in many ways as well.
The whole reason Germany even took on that front was to prop up weak Italy. And they knew that total defeat in Africa was a precursor to Allied continental offensives in the Mediterranean. And hell, at this point they knew the odds were heavily stacked against them in the long run.
I think Rommel believed that a defensive strat could only lead to a slower but inevitable defeat, whereas a hail mary successful offensive could thwart the Allies in the Mediterranean indefinitely and shift the balance massively in Germany's favor.
Either way, Rommel was known to be an aggressive commander that pushed the envelope. If Germany had wanted a more conservative general, they should have sent one.
>>1445463
>>No worries, I got this.
what you got is a severe case of lead poisoning in the brain