I don't think they were. Remember, they placed all their top divisions facing Monty for a reason. The main thing they prob feared was that they didn't have the reserves to deal with an overly aggressive general such as Patton like they had done with the russians in 42 and 43 under Manstein.
As for the 20 men, he was a tank, right? That means 5 men per tank, so 4 tanks, and that's only if everyone in each tank was killed. So if you put it at say, 2-3 men kia per tank...that's a lot of tanks for a town.
The 20 men Mr. Clark talked about being lost on average ( I assume he meant killed and wounded), they were the infantry accompanying the tank or the tank platoon that was sent in. Now he also thought they lost tanks uselessly when advancing on towns, mostly from hidden AT or occasionally armor, because the weren't allowed to thoroughly scout the towns before they advanced. Occasionally they lost some tanks in towns from close-range handheld AT weapons. He agreed with having a tank supporting infantry in a town, but not the other way around, where the tank leads the probe. He thought infantry should lead, and bring tanks up from behind to knock out mg nests and fortified positions; not for them to get out front and then have a 'faust come from a ground-level window of a cellar that hadn't been cleared.
As for the better units facing Monty, IMO in Normandy that was more a function of the terrain, with Caen being key to the region, and the obvious breakout path being where the British were positioned. After the breakout,I assumed Monty usually had the shortest, most direct routes to Berlin. I'm also betting that OKW generally knew what the respective roles of the Allied army commanders was. I'm betting they knew Patton was not going to be permitted to drive on Berlin.
This is something I should know and don't, but, outside of Normandy, did Monty consistently face superior-quality German units? If so, was it because of Monty? I know the Germans considered him capable but overcautious and very, very slow to move. I'd like to know about the opinion of OKW and corps-and-higher commanders' opinion of Monty
vis a' vis after he reached Holland and then got into Germany.