Rommel vs Patton When Tactics Lost to the Production Machine скачать в хорошем качестве

Rommel vs Patton When Tactics Lost to the Production Machine

Rommel vs Patton When Tactics Lost to the Production Machine Field Marshal Erwin Rommel does not look at the burning Sherman tanks. He stands in the grit of the Tunisian desert, ignoring the black smoke rolling off the Kasserine Pass, and focuses entirely on a small cardboard box in his gloved hands. It is not a fuse, a shell casing, or a map of the Atlas Mountains. It is a chocolate cake. The crumb is moist. It was baked in New York City. The packet of cigarettes next to it is sealed in airtight cellophane, untouched by the salt air of the Atlantic crossing. Rommel turns the package over. He is not analyzing the caliber of the enemy guns or the thickness of their armor plate. He is reading the date stamp. The wreckage of the American column is still hot enough to blister skin, yet the food scattered across the sand is fresher than the rations in Berlin. He hands the cake to a staff officer without a word, but his eyes do not return to the tactical map. They stay on the supply crate. The wind that whips the crate off the fender carries the chill of the Atlas Mountains. It is February, nineteen forty-three. Below the ridge, the survivors of the United States Army II Corps are being herded into holding pens. They look too healthy. Their uniforms are stiff with factory starch, and their helmets lack the dents of shrapnel. To the crews of the Panzer Army Africa, these men do not look like soldiers; they look like civilians wearing costumes. The Germans guarding them have sand from El Alamein and mud from the Russian front ground into their knuckles. They rest their hands on the hull of the Tiger One heavy tank. They adjust the elevation wheels of the eighty-eight millimeter anti-tank gun. The difference is not subtle. When the eighty-eight speaks, an American tank ceases to exist. When the American shells strike the Tiger, they leave only gray smears of lead on the face-hardened steel. The qualitative gap is physical, visible, and seemingly insurmountable. The smears of lead on the armor plate tell General von Arnim everything he needs to know about the enemy. To his staff, the Americans are merely Italians with better equipment. They lack the instinct for the kill. They retreat when flank pressure is applied. They wait for orders instead of seizing initiative. In the high-ceilinged map rooms of Berlin, the High Command reads the telegrams from Tunisia with a sense of detached satisfaction. This is a secondary theater. The real war is burning in Russia, consuming armies whole. North Africa is simply a place to bleed the Allies slowly, to buy time for the Atlantic Wall. Field Marshal Kesselring lands at the airfield and sees no reason to panic. He believes that war is an art form, and the Americans are trying to paint by numbers. A German tank commander spends years mastering the harmonics of his engine and the ballistics of his gun. He can judge range by eye to within fifty yards. The American crews are drafted clerks and mechanics who treat their tanks like farm tractors. Berlin is certain that superior biology and superior doctrine will always shatter a clumsy mass-produced hammer. They are not worried about the number of tanks; they are comforted by the quality of the men inside them.