And who has suggested he do so? I.e. you are promegating another starwman.mellenthin wrote:Just sitting on the defensive and leaving the intietive to an enemy with a growing material supeiority,particularly in a theatre like North Africa,with its high suitability for mobile warfare will only lead to defeat .
With what aproval? and it may legitiamtely be claimed "too far".... That is what Rommel did(with approval)° and he got very far.
Was there? That's a rather unsupported opinion now isn't it.There certainly was a window of opportunity for pushing the british back to the Nile in 1942 but insufficient resources were committed.
Who approved them and to what extent? The rogue bit is another strawman is it not? At least on this board I've not seen anyone make such a claim.... Rommels proposals for the offensive in 1942 were approved so he was not where he was because he went rogue.
Well sense it was physically impossible for what was sent to arrive at the front given the existing log network your premise seems rather flawed. The fact that captured supplies made some of his advances possible is rather another pointer to him being overextended.He was certainly never overextended as he could be supplied wherever he was on the condition that what was sent also arrived.
Since shipping the supplies from the ports to the front was one of if not the major problem at times I'm not sure the Italians are due for much heat on this.Some may allege that the supply effort was run at peak efficiency but that is very doubtable, if only because of the italian way of doing things.
Actually there's quite a bit more to it than that. At some point you saturate the roads and then there's spare parts and especially in the desert water not to mention supplies of various types and security forces and ... well you get the idea. Or maybe you don't but rational readers will.Some may allege that a lenthy supplyline is an insurmountable problem but that is also untrue. A longer supplyline in an area without railways only means more trucks and fuel are needed.