shells, 400 more tanks, 1,500 jeeps, and 150,000 spare tires to replace worn-out ones, none of which was readily available until the Scheldt was cleared. By 15 December, only the Seventh U.S. Army had reached the Rhine by taking Strasbourg while the U.S. Third Army had advanced into Germany to run up against one of the strongest sections of the West Wall. At least part of the reason for the failure for the Allied offensives was the shortage of infantry replacements, with the Americans coming close to running out of infantry replacements and the British being forced to break up divisions to provide reinforcements. Germany recognized the danger of the Allies having a deep water port, and in an attempt to destroy it – or at least disrupt the flow of supplies – the German military fired more V-2 rockets at Antwerp than at any other city. Nearly half of the V-2s launched during the war were aimed at Antwerp. The port of Antwerp was so strategically vital that during the Battle of the Bulge, the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front, launched on 16 December 1944, the primary German objective was to retake the city and its port. Without Antwerp being opened, which allowed 2.5 million tons of supplies to arrive at that port between November 1944 and April 1945, the Allied advance into Germany in 1945 with the American, British, and French armies heading into the Reich would have been impossible. Controversy The Battle of the Scheldt has been described by historians as unnecessarily difficult, as it could have been cleared earlier and more easily had the Allies given it a higher priority than Operation Market Garden. American historian Charles B. MacDonald called the failure to immediately take the Scheldt "[o]ne of the greatest tactical mistakes of the war." Because of the flawed strategic choices made by the Allies in early September 1944, the battle became one of the longest and bloodiest that the Canadian army faced over the course of the Second World War. The French Channel ports were "resolutely defended" like "fortresses" and Antwerp was the only viable alternative. However, Montgomery ignored Admiral Cunningham, who said that Antwerp would be "as much use as Timbuctoo" unless the approaches were cleared, and Ramsay, who warned SHAEF and Montgomery that the Germans could block the Scheldt estuary with ease. The Antwerp city and port fell