[plant-pilot]

Although there were several full formations in and around the Arnhem area, a major contributing factor in the speed with which the Germans were able to react is the standardization in German training and their ability to quickly draw together ad hock units that could work well together and follow the orders of the senior rank around.

It was not uncommon around Arnhem to find mixed units of SS, Wehrmacht, Kriegs Marine and Luftwaffe, all fighting together as a single unit and fighting well. Common weapons, tactics anc doctorine all helped, as did the fact that they were fighting on the doorstep of the fatherland.

I feel that if everything else hadn't gone wrong the battle for the bridge, as planned, would not have been a walkover. It would have needed everthing to have been dropped much closer to the objective and all in one lift for them to have had a chance to have taken and held the bridge long enough for XXX Corps to have made it.

Blaming it on XXX Corps tanks for stopping to make tea is a little cruel. The infantry had to clear the towns, hindered by the jubilant Dutch, while the tanks had to wait for their infantry support to catch up. Tanks advancing without support is not clever. Nothing wrong with making a brew while you are waiting as any squaddie knows.