Warning: thread hijacking for historical debate!
Yes, I agree, the priority for 21st Army Group in September should have been to clear the Scheldt and open Antwerp, no argument. I've wargamed it enough times to confirm it to my mind.
Dunno if I've posted this before, but check out a book: "The Battle for Western Europe, Fall 1944: An Operational Assessment" by John A. Adams Jr.
His argument is that Ike's so-called "broad front" strategy was to draw the German panzer force (i.e. Fifth Panzer Armee) into battle on the flat, open area around Aachen, damage or destroy it, and then attack the Rhine when there would be no German reserves behind it. Bradley and Hodges flubbed it by attacking towards Aachen, north of Aachen, south of Aachen (Hurtgen), and everywhere else. Montgomery, Bradley, and others failed to understand all of this.
I think Adams brings up an important point, that with or without Antwerp as a working port, the existence of a panzer army inn reserve (in Real Life, *2* panzer armies hoarded until, and eventually wiped out in, the Bulge attack) makes crossing the Rhine an ugly idea.
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My Twilight claim to fame: I ran "Allegheny Uprising" at Allegheny College, spring of 1988.
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