Talk:Operation Market Garden order of battle

Capitalization

Anyone else bugged by the lack of it on Order of Battle? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.5.20.44 (talk) 01:07, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

Nope, not at all :p --EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 02:27, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

German OOB

Am just looking at a map supplied by Wilmot in The Struggle For Europe, Pg 512.

15th Army

He shows the 15th Army facing the First Canadian Army and therefore not in the axis of advance the allies took.

On top of that he shows the following divisions being under there control:

64
70
245
346
711
712

Two questions:

One: Did they actually take part in opposing Operation Market Garden? Two: If the map Wilmot has provided is correct why are there suposidly First Parachute Army units on there order of battle?

First Parachute Army

Wilmots map shows there being additional divisions assigned to this army: 7th
84th
85th
406th

Is there a reason they are not shown?

XII SS Corps

These guys dont even show up on the map, where were they based, did they take part in this operation?

And who was the 363rd Volkgrenadier Division assigned to?--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 19:00, 20 April 2008 (UTC)

12th Army Group

The only times this 12th AG is mentioned in the parent article is during the background sections, from what i read when i quickly scanned through they appear to have not played an active part in "Garden".
If this is the case i do not see why it should be on this article. Just in case ive made a terrible balls up, here is the removed information:

12th Army Group

Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley

US First Army - Lieutenant General Courtney H. Hodges

• XIX Corps - Major General Charles H. Corlett
  • 2nd Armored Division - Major-General Ernest N. Harmon
  • 7th Armored Division (from 27 September) - Major-General Lindsay McDonald Silvester
  • 29th Infantry Division (from 27 September) - Major General Charles H. Gerhardt
  • 30th Infantry Division - Major-General Leland S. Hobbs
  • 113th Cavalry Group

--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 02:31, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Battalions

Apologies Enigmamcmxc, didn't realise there was a format for British units. I did believe though, that whilst the convention nowadays is for units to name themselves so (eg. 3 Para, short for 3rd Parachute Regiment), in WWII they were more proud of Battalion designations, and units were written to include their unit size (eg. 7th Btn K.O.S.B.). That wasn't why I did it though - my reason was to distinguish between British and American Regiments to the casual reader. With the US Airborne Regiments listed below the 1st Airborne, it may appear that they are similarly sized units, when in fact the American regiments are equivelant to Brigades. I'm happy to stick to an agreed format, but for clarity might it be an idea to at least explain/link to what sized unit the various groups were? Regards Psychostevouk (talk) 19:00, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

As a civillian i cant really comment on weather it is the regiment or the battalion units were most proud to be, although i was under the impression it was the former.

In the British Army there is only one parachute regiment. 1, 2, 3 and 4 Para are not regiments they are battalions of the Parachute Regiment. See The Parachute Regiment website

This was an issue which use to confuse me until i started to read more British sources and then there was a book which explained it all. To use another example, the Rifle Brigade (although called a brigade was regiment) fielded several battalions throughout the war and will be seen throughout books called 1st Rifle Brigade, 2nd Rifle Brigade, 8th Rifle Brigade etc

Would adding the extra depth to the article by showing the battalions in the American parachtue regiments help? Or a note near the top to quickly explain the differance between brigade and regiment in British and American terminology?--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 08:00, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

The confusion here is caused by use of shorthand names like 1st Parachute Regiment etc.. Although the normal shorthand is 1 PARA, the proper name is 1st battalion The Parachute Regiment (sometimes shortened to 1st bn Parachute Regiment). This applies to all regiments. Putting shortened names (i.e. without battalion) into a document of reference like this is just lazy! Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 08:43, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Sorry but are you also stating practically every historian, book or televised, are also lazy for referring as such?--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 11:23, 12 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes. Well, most historical books don't go down to battalion level in their OOB listings. In the text it is quite acceptable to have shortened names because the context always makes it clear that it is a battalion rather than a regiment. This is an encyclopedia which is supposed to give clear unambiguous information. It's already clear above that the abbreviated format can cause confusion to the non-expert, so it seems to me that the formal OOB listing should have the full title of the unit and the text can employ the shortened version. So let's think about the casual reader rather than worrying about if we are "cool" with the rest of the m5edia. After all, the London Gazette (and you can't get more official than that!), which goes to all possible lengths to save paper through abbreviation always refers to Xth Bn. ABC Reg.. Stephen Kirrage ^{talk - contribs} 11:48, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

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Incomplete OOB

Is there any reason that the OOB here is kept incomplete? Is there any reason it has not been taken to platoon level? Given the main article, and the actions of some platoons, it seems to me warranted to extend the OOB to that level --124.184.17.106 (talk) 01:04, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

No order of battle -in any major source i have seen - goes down to the platoon level. In some instances yes they will break down to the Company level -and that is reflected on the wiki - but that is only really ever for smaller battles. This operation consisted of something like four armies how would overloading the reader with information that is not really relevant be beneficial? At then can the same level of detail be provided for the German side of things? Battalion upwards seems to be the easiest way of going about things and providing the right level of information.

As for the quip why is it being left incomplete, one should remind you that this is a volunteer project.--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 07:34, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I often forget its by volunteers. But, volunteer does not mean low quality research, does it?

Some parts of the OB can certainly be done to platoon level, so why not do it in an operation where platoons did matter. Final Oosterbeek perimeter positions were held by platoons and troops from different units within the divisional OB of 1AB, which would be helpful for the reader I'm sure. --58.166.95.142 (talk) 05:19, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

I remember you....you are the one who thinks the British Army was competent in use of armour during the Normandy breakout campaign. I will be getting back to that article eventually. You are the volunteer that likes to choose sources very carefully lol --58.166.95.142 (talk) 05:27, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Make silly little comments all you like but can you back them up? As for this article; platoons belong to the battalion, the latter is notable (for being part of the parent regiment) the former is pretty much not. How will the reader be provided with any more information that shows X battalion Y Company had A,B, and C platoons? It just seems like an unneeded ammount of detail. I have yet to see a source that breaks on order of battle down to the platoon level when presenting this information to the reader.--EnigmaMcmxc (talk) 08:03, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm, hello Mrg, long time no see. Still evading bans, are we? Anyway, I don't really see why this OOB needs to go down to platoon-level; as Enigma has said, and I'd agree with, there aren't any published ones that go into that much detail, and I'm not really sure how useful such detail would be. Are there even any reliable sources that would list such micro-details? Skinny87 (talk) 08:24, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

IP socks blocked EyeSerene^talk 08:28, 4 September 2009 (UTC)

Not withstanding the above acrimonious exchange, the german OOB certainly falls short in many ways. I realise this is due to the complexity involved in giving a proper OOB when a large part of the units involved were ad-hoc formations of varying strength and origin, the training units were mingled with frontline combat units and even the main regiments involved had strengths and composition greatly at variance with their hypothetical make-up. Having said that - II SS Panzer corps had other battalions than the ones listed including some that played a notable role in the action like 9th SS Pioneer (Engineers in english) batallion. On the other hand the panzer or artillery battalions that are mentioned in almost all cases had neither tanks nor guns nor artillery trains and similar issues exist with mentioning the recon battallions. The OOB therefore gives a wrong impression about the actual strength facing the allies. When you hear that the British face the 9th and 10th Panzer divisions you think of rows of Mark IV tanks - which they had almost none of in reality. The tanks that turned up were Mark III 1940 vintage tanks from the Bochult training school. Surely that is relevant for an OOB? The next problem with the German OOB is the reference to Kampfgruppes - yes they were of paramount importance so they should be mentioned - at least half a dozen of them are missing in the OOB if not more. The way they are listed now is as if they were on par with SS 9th and 10th - certainly they were not except for Von Tettau's group which was very large. Thirdly the listing shows Von Zangens 15th army and then either erroneously lists units not in that army or gives zero detail about the 80,000 (!) men which came on from the west. Fourthly many of the units listed such as 107th Panzer Brigade and 711th static division (I didnt check all of them) either did not (and could not) be at Market Garden or their Wiki entries make no mention of their presence at Market Garden in fact not infrequently it seems rather unlikely they would be near Market Garden geographically or timewise according to those wiki entries. Finally - and I do appreciate the volunteer work - I have to side with some of the comments above and below that a lot of the meaningful action was fought a lower levels. This is true both for the British OOB as well as the Germans - this battle was pretty messy. Horrocks XXX remained a coherent fighting force but its advance was halted by a few Panzers pincing off the supply lines at some point, two tigers turned up at Arnhem and certainly tilted the balance same as for the British the arrival of small groups of 2nd wave troops was a welcome reinforcement. The OOB fails to give you any feeling for the complexity of the situation both on the allied and German side. The Dutch brigade mentioned in the allied OOB for example was important historically but played a tiny tiny role in market garden being assigned Tilburg as a target which they also failed to take. My contention would therefore be that as described the OOB does not meet what an OOB should namely: 'what an Army unit might be expected to encounter while deployed in the field' from Wiki OOB entry. Sources are not as hard to find as is averred in the text above, Market Garden is one of the most researched battles in history and gradually a lot of the detail of the Germans involved has come out The allied side was always clearer although quite a bit of it arrived piecemeal or not at all and this relevant for the OOB. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TrustyJules (talk • contribs) 21:01, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Roster

This seems more like a "roster" of units, rather than an "order of battle" which should include dispostion. Student7 (talk) 17:03, 15 October 2011 (UTC)