who was the best ww2 general in your opinion?

note: the asterisk in #13 is an i

Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the 'Desert Fox'

Desert Fox all the way. Almost, probably all, strategies worked or would have worked. He saw the weakness in Normandy, he drove the allies out of N. Africa. He was a good man too. The only reason he lost was because of a lack of resources.

Yamamoto, Dönitz and Nimitz were technically admirals. ;)

Maybe you should make a poll for best admiral. Would be interesting.

Manstein. Rommel had his moments but was often reckless. Up to a point that is good but El Alamein basicly smashed the Africa Korp. He overextended himself. manstein I think was the most capable of the German generals although Guderain was good to.

Id say zhukov, but because of his virtues, rommel gets my vote.

I dont know a whole lot of admirals, so I probably couldnt do that.

model--the furher's fireman

Field Marshall Model?

Originally posted by Zardnaar
Manstein. Rommel had his moments but was often reckless. Up to a point that is good but El Alamein basicly smashed the Africa Korp. He overextended himself. manstein I think was the most capable of the German generals although Guderain was good to.

He had to overextend himself for his fuhrer's goals. Due to the Soviet invasion, more and more troops to Russia and less and less for occupation and invasion of other areas.

Of those I'd choose between either Rommel, Manstein or Guderein, of all of them though I think Alexander deserves a mention as he was at least the equal of Montgomery, and respected far more by the Americans also. On the German side Kesselring also showed some ability in the Italian campaign. De Gaulle is out for me because of his lack of action on the battlefield, he only briefly fought in the 1940 campaign and not really that capably in comparison.

Patton and Montgomery were far too arrogant and way too busy competing with eachother to win for me as this cost the allies dearly on some occaisions. McArthur was a prima donna with no respect for the men under his command or his superiors. Bradley to me was the most capable American general as he simply did his job quietly rather than hunted glory.

If I had to choose.... I'd probably pick Manstein :)

Patton. The American panzer general. His drive across France in '44 was tru blitzkreig. Thens there's Sicliy where he won the race despited having to go over horrible terrain. He commanded the first allied troops to cross the Rhine. And his march to save the 101 in Bastonge.

If the gas and supplies hadn't gone into Market Garden then he would have smashed through the West wall and captured the Rhur in 44.

I admit he was always trying to beat or look better then Monty but he was a better commander than him.

Originally posted by Constantine
Patton. The American panzer general. His drive across France in '44 was tru blitzkreig. Thens there's Sicliy where he won the race despited having to go over horrible terrain. He commanded the first allied troops to cross the Rhine. And his march to save the 101 in Bastonge.

If the gas and supplies hadn't gone into Market Garden then he would have smashed through the West wall and captured the Rhur in 44.

I admit he was always trying to beat or look better then Monty but he was a better commander than him.

Patton broke out of Normandy first because he faced much less tanks than Montgomery, and whilst the drive was a true sucess it was made possible by Montgomery tying down and engaging the majority of the Armour in Normandy, as planned by Ike. I agree he was marginally better than Montgomery in terms of ability, but he almost always faced better conditions or less troops than Montgomery ever did with usually better resources and manpower. Considering those factors, whilst Patton was certainly no worse than Montgomery, I don't rate him that much higher, just different. Montgomery was a cautious, methodical planner, Patton an inspirational driving commander. They each suited different situations best, and yes Patton suited a drive into Germany better than Montgomery.

The true test of his mettle though would have been to place him in the shoes of Montgomery with his resources and see the results, because whilst I have some respect for Patton's abilities, I doubt these could have stood the test of less troops or more enemies.

Rundstedt,

While most don't know about him becuase he was rarely the "top dog" in any campaign, he was a reliable and well rounded officer. And whiel he lost the post-Normandy suggfest with the Allies, the fact that he inflicted the losses he did considering how much equiment, air power, and troops the Allies had in comparison to him, it is truly amazing.

-Pat

But why Monty holding the German armour? Because he couldn't stage an effective breakout. All those operations that failed miserably.

Patton accomplished much with little. That was the fate of a social outcast. I think the true measure of the man was the months leading up to the Battle of the Bulge. I have had the opportunity to speak with one of his tank cammanders from 3rd Army. He, like many of his colleagues was in awe of Patton's abilty to analyze battle remains.

In the particular case of the Christmas offensive, he was convinced something was up as early as October. He would go on and on about what was missing from the wreckage: winter clothes, AP shells, whatever. I have heard it said the the single greatest achievement of the war was when his staff cut the contingency orders, which resulted in the charge to free Bastoigne, in the week preceding the attack.

Patton IMO was clearly the best Allied field General of the war. My vote went to Manstein.

J

I voted 'other' - IMO, British Field Marshal William Slim was the best general of the war. He did reasonably well in the retreat from Burma in 1942, and his reconquest of Burma in 1944-45 was brilliant, especially when you consider the incredibly severe logistical constraints he was operating under.

If this poll is meant to be including Admirals as well, then British Admiral's Cunnigham and Ramsey both deserve places in it. Cunnigham has rightfully been called the best British Admiral since Nelson, and Ramsey masterminded all the major amphibious operations in the European and Meditteranean theatres from Dunririk until D-Day.

Originally posted by Constantine
But why Monty holding the German armour? Because he couldn't stage an effective breakout. All those operations that failed miserably.

...until the last one, where the forces under Monty's command actually moved significantly faster then forces under Patton's command ;)

Anyway, you can't really compare Montgomery with Patton in 1944-45 for the simple reason that they had different jobs. While Montgomery was an Army Group commander, Patton was only comanding an Army. Hence, Montgomery should be compared to Bradley and Patch, while Patton should be compared to Dempsey and the guy in charge of the 1st Canadian Army (whose name starts with 'C').

Originally posted by Constantine
But why Monty holding the German armour? Because he couldn't stage an effective breakout. All those operations that failed miserably.

1) It was allied strategy to draw german armour onto the British and Canadians enabling the encirclement Patton caused around Falaise.

2) Said breakouts failed due to the small factor of 2-3 times the number of tanks facing the British than was facing Patton when he tried... Kind of important I'd say before deciding whether such a failiure was important to montgomery's quality. Yes his breakout's failed, and frankly the tactics used were all too often appaling, but when you consider Patton faced just 2-3 divisions with any kind of numbers of tanks in them when he tried, and Montgomery faced more often than not faced 6-8 it might help to understand just why it failed rather than simply to note that it did.

3) The germans also felt the British the greater threat of the two, hence the concentration of 4 SS Panzer divisions against them to the single one facing the Americans for most of the Campaign.

As for the stuff about Patton's race across france, well so did Montgomery and Bradley at roughly the same time with equal speed. I also seem to recall that part of the reason why the Falaise gap remained open so long was partly Patton's doing. I don't quite reason why Patton had little on comparison to Montgomery though to be frank. I don't think Patton was a bad general (I'd possibly rate him 2nd or third best of the Allies), but I do think that his reputation has been exploded out of all proportion in comparison to the problems he and his other commanders faced. That's before the whole issue of his constant bickering with Montgomery is taken into account, a factor that shames both commander's records.

Patton.

Military genius.

He knew the politics of war. One thing he said is that we should have drove to Berlin, then continued on to Moscow. He knew better. Only if he had been in charge.

Uhmmm no, Britain couldn't be counted on to do that for one, British manpower and the economy were on the verge of collapse by the end of the war as it was, there's no way the British could have continued on to invade Russia after Germany was beaten. Also I somehow doubt you're going to find too many allied commanders willing to incur the kind of losses associated with the fall of Berlin.

Case: Good point on the levels of command, I think the Canadian was called Crear if my memory serves me correctly.

The Canadian was called Crerar

ive heard of him, but most havent, so thats why hes not up here.

!!! no1 has voted for Zhukov?

Zhukov!

On an Anglo-Saxon forum, why would the Soviet leaders get any credit? It was, after all, the Soviets who fought the hardest and did the most to win the war in Europe.

Sarevok I was just telling Private Hudson the spelling.

Monygomery Vs Patton. Montgomery as he had his moments Africa as well. Patton was a little to pro Nazi given some of his comments and attitude towards say the Russians and fellow allied commanders.

patton also got the easier jobs to. He only really took command when the Axis were already losing. Any general could probably have done what he done to some extent.

I voted Zhukov. He saved the day at Stalingrad and drove the Fascist invader out of the Motherland. Also, he and the Russian generals dealt with Stalin much better than the German generals dealt with Hitler. Most importantly he WON. The Nazis lost the war, so I will not vote for one of them.

I voted de Gaulle. He had some courage to not surrender and to put up with all the other Generals who I am sure were making fun of him all the time.

*this is a joke by the way

Originally posted by privatehudson
Uhmmm no, Britain couldn't be counted on to do that for one, British manpower and the economy were on the verge of collapse by the end of the war as it was, there's no way the British could have continued on to invade Russia after Germany was beaten. Also I somehow doubt you're going to find too many allied commanders willing to incur the kind of losses associated with the fall of Berlin.

Case: Good point on the levels of command, I think the Canadian was called Crear if my memory serves me correctly.

I forget the name of the operation. Unthinkable? It was FDR's plan to invade Soviet Russia after Germany with newly fitted captured nation divisions. Patton was really good, and he may have seemed a little fiesty but that was because Montgomery was a wannabe glory hog. The best part? Patton considered himself the reincarnation of Hannibal.

Patton was not pro-Nazi, he just understood the practicallity of using the Nazi's after th WWII against the Soviets, while most were lost in ideology that doomed the Eastern Block to perpetual occupation.

I forget the name of the operation. Unthinkable? It was FDR's plan to invade Soviet Russia after Germany with newly fitted captured nation divisions. Patton was really good, and he may have seemed a little fiesty but that was because Montgomery was a wannabe glory hog. The best part? Patton considered himself the reincarnation of Hannibal.

BOTH patton and Montomery hunted glory before victory, the difference is Patton generally had a better chance of grasping it and therefore tended to achieve more. As for the plan, again I point to the lack of support Britain could provide realistically. FDR I think was living in a dream world if he thought he could realistically unite and arm the conquered nations quickly and effectively to face a threat the size of the red army.

Originally posted by Patroklos
Patton was not pro-Nazi, he just understood the practicallity of using the Nazi's after th WWII against the Soviets, while most were lost in ideology that doomed the Eastern Block to perpetual occupation. :worship: :goodjob: :thumbsup: :thanx: [dance]

The tactic of using the Nazi's against the Soviets was used by all of the western Allies, or do you imagine Von Braun, Von Bolschwig and Klaus Barbie were American? :p

Seriously, it's very nice to imagine that we could just round up the Germans and fight the Russians, but it ignores many, many complications such as the ruined state of Germany and most of Western Europe, the war weary state of Britain, The American need to defeat Japan and so on.

Not to mention the notion that simply transferring the Wermacht/Waffen SS en masse into this alliance would alienate the rest of the Europeans involved who had quite real reasons for hating and fearing the Germans as much if not more than they might Stalin. Then you'd have to presumably weed out those "lost in ideology" or as they were also known, Nazis. No use employing a bunch of Nazis to fight Communists just because they're no worse than Stalin's mob, the conquered of Europe wanted justice, no amnesty or anonymity for those who had tortured their lives.

Even assuming you could remove the Nazi element of the forces, using the Germans would be like invading Iraq whilst trying to use Egyptian, Syrian and Israeli allies. The problems would be too great, the countries involved too stretched, Britain for one would have to mostly sit it out on the sidelines or provide token forces and a base for the US involvement. Europe had enough trouble recovering from the war, let alone carrying it on X years.

What happened to the eastern bloc was a crying shame, what happened though was IMO unavoidable for the exhausted allies. Patton may have recognised a more long term goal if he meant to bring Germany into an alliance against Russia, but if he thought a Allied grouping such as that could go on to engage russia straight off he should have thought again.

I would not have been opposed to ending the war in Japan with the two nuclear bombs then building as many as possible, around 1946-47, give the Soviet Union an ultimatum to release Eastern Europe, if not drop an atom bomb on Moscow, killing Stalin, and then taking Eastern Europe by force, while using atom bombs to destroy Soviet Armies and other cities.

Oh Joy, just imagine the wonder of dropping 3-10 nuclear weapons? Well that seems ok then.....

This poll is seriously flawed. I would also advocate separating admirals from generals, as it is comparing apples to oranges. Any poll not including Spruance is fatally flawed. The man virtually won the Pacific War for America.

Hey we would'nt have had the Cold War...

Originally posted by Enemy Ace
Hey we would'nt have had the Cold War...

Maybe, but Europe WOULD have severe problems with all that Nuclear fallout and waste on it's doorstep. That might not worry America, but it sure as hell would worry the Europeans it fell on I assure you

"On an Anglo-Saxon forum, why would the Soviet leaders get any credit? It was, after all, the Soviets who fought the hardest and did the most to win the war in Europe."

Two Words: Operation Mars.

Stalingrad: 4 Russians killed for every German killed. If I had the manpower that the Russians had and hurled humanity at the Germans 'till they quit I'd be a famous Russian commander too.

Originally posted by ss3goku
I forget the name of the operation. Unthinkable? It was FDR's plan to invade Soviet Russia after Germany with newly fitted captured nation divisions.

What's your source on this?

I've read literally hundreds of books on WW2 without ever seeing a single reference to 'FDR's plan to invade Soviet Russia'. Everything I've read states that 1) FDR was very keen on German unconditional surrender and 2) He envisioned continuing co-operation between the US and USSR after the end of the war. In the weeks before his death he became increasingly disilusioned with 2), but not to the point where he even considered waging war against the Soviet Union, let alone with re-armed Germans!

Originally posted by covok48
If I had the manpower that the Russians had and hurled humanity at the Germans 'till they quit I'd be a famous Russian commander too.

You appear to be ignorant of the Soviet performance in 1944 and 1945. The Red Army's sophistication increased greatly after Stalingrad and Kursk, and by 1944 they were able to out-blitzkrieg the Germans. For instance, they destroyed an Army Group of 20 German divisions in a few days during Operation Bagration, smashed the German forces in the Balkans in 1944 (which included the encirclement and destruction of the rebuilt 6th Army) and the Vistula-Oder operation launched in late 1944 included the fastest advance of the war, when the Red Army stormed across Poland, almost capturing Berlin 'on the bounce'.

While Soviet tactics did remain cold blooded, Soviet Generalship improved beyond all recognition, with the Germans being out generaled at every level (and don't go blaming Hitler for this - supposidly qualified German Generals made some astonishingly bad decisions througout 1944-45). The Soviets were particularly brilliant at the strategic level, and were able to schedule their offencives in such a way that the Germans were permenantly off balance, and often ignored the signs of Soviet build-ups in new areas (which lead to the Bagration disaster).

very good point case, the soviet army got a qhole lot better over the course of the war. those ural factories could curn out... what 12,000 tanks a month? while germanys did little over 800? i think this is flawed but its something i heard.

Originally posted by Sarevok
very good point case, the soviet army got a qhole lot better over the course of the war. those ural factories could curn out... what 12,000 tanks a month? while germanys did little over 800? i think this is flawed but its something i heard.

That seems about right, considering the USSR produced a total of somewhere near 100,000 tanks in the whole war. And sorry for the mistake, it was Churchill's idea, i got confused. http://members.tripod.com/~american_almanac/church.htm

i did think it was a bit strange... roosevelt though Stalin was a mon who "got things done", but churchill totally despised stalin.

My vote goes for Patton.

I voted 'other' - IMO, British Field Marshal William Slim was the best general of the war. He did reasonably well in the retreat from Burma in 1942, and his reconquest of Burma in 1944-45 was brilliant, especially when you consider the incredibly severe logistical constraints he was operating under.

Yes, I also voted other because William Slim was an amzing general. Considering his resources, he did AMAZING things.

Originally posted by Sarevok
i did think it was a bit strange... roosevelt though Stalin was a mon who "got things done", but churchill totally despised stalin.
That's coz Churchill was a conservative and monarchist. He was also very shrewd. When Hitler was bullying Europe in the late 30s Churchill was a voice in the wilderness in his oppisition to appeasement. I spose Churchill saw very little difference between Hitler and Stalin- with good cause.

Originally posted by pawpaw
model--the furher's fireman

In other words the Fuhrer's lackey.
Manstein all the way! The Western front in '40, Sevastapol, withdrawal after Stalingrad, Karkhov. Hitler was a fool to cashier him.

Originally posted by rilnator


In other words the Fuhrer's lackey.


no, the guy who got the crappy job of saving over and over bad situations on the eastern front ( mostly after one of hitler stupid no retreat orders ) the russians would brake through, hitler would say no retreat, it would get out of hand and model would get the call to reorganize the lines--then get fired till the next disaster

To those people who rave about the Russian late war wins, its hardly the fairest of comparisons to be honest, is it? An exhausted, desperately under-strength German army with horrific supply problems and facing ridiculous commands from Hitler that hindered their every effort to step back and regroup against a vast army with enormous amounts of hardware. Zhukov was good but he certainly wasnt a match for the likes of Manstein, Guderian and Rommel.

[

Generalship is not a 'one size fits all' talent. Modern thinking regards WW2 divisions and corps as the tactical level. Army is a bit more difficult but Army Group and Front were undoubtedly the operational level.

The problem is that command responsibility varied a bit at the operational level. Soviet fronts reported directly to the strategic level Stavka as did German Army Groups to OKH/OKW. However, allied AGs reported to Supreme Allied Comds. The question is were these strategic or operational level comds? If they were the latter then it could be argued that Army was a tactical level.

The importance of this is that Patton never commanded at AG level, and it could be argued that he fought his army as a large corps! This would mean that Patton could not be considered in the same league as the others, he was merely a tactical comd, which is different skills and cannot be compared to the operational level.

On the Eastern Front the Germans' operational level was consistently defeated by the superior generalship of the Soviet Front comds. (Yes I know many want to believe it was all about numbers, and I agree the Germans were tactically better).

There is a view that the best Soviet Front comd was Rokossovsky (1st Byelorussian).

It's probably worth noting that by 1944 the Germans, Russians and British had 'shaken out' their generals, those they had were at least competant and often very capable, and the odd div comd who didn't shape up on promotion was identified and removed fairly promptly. I'm not sure that the US and Japanese armies had been sufficiently tested to have sorted out their commanders, although the latter had by the beginning of 1945.

[

Generalship is not a 'one size fits all' talent. Modern thinking regards WW2 divisions and corps as the tactical level. Army is a bit more difficult but Army Group and Front were undoubtedly the operational level.

The problem is that command responsibility varied a bit at the operational level. Soviet fronts reported directly to the strategic level Stavka as did German Army Groups to OKH/OKW. However, allied AGs reported to Supreme Allied Comds. The question is were these strategic or operational level comds? If they were the latter then it could be argued that Army was a tactical level.

The importance of this is that Patton never commanded at AG level, and it could be argued that he fought his army as a large corps! This would mean that Patton could not be considered in the same league as the others, he was merely a tactical comd, which is different skills and cannot be compared to the operational level.

On the Eastern Front the Germans' operational level was consistently defeated by the superior generalship of the Soviet Front comds. (Yes I know many want to believe it was all about numbers, and I agree the Germans were tactically better).

There is a view that the best Soviet Front comd was Rokossovsky (1st Byelorussian).

It's probably worth noting that by 1944 the Germans, Russians and British had 'shaken out' their generals, those they had were at least competant and often very capable, and the odd div comd who didn't shape up on promotion was identified and removed fairly promptly. I'm not sure that the US and Japanese armies had been sufficiently tested to have sorted out their commanders, although the latter had by the beginning of 1945.

Originally posted by Kentonio
To those people who rave about the Russian late war wins, its hardly the fairest of comparisons to be honest, is it? An exhausted, desperately under-strength German army with horrific supply problems and facing ridiculous commands from Hitler that hindered their every effort to step back and regroup against a vast army with enormous amounts of hardware. Zhukov was good but he certainly wasnt a match for the likes of Manstein, Guderian and Rommel.

He was also master of the battles that brought Germany down: Moscow, Stalingrad, and Kursk.

Rommel

I will go with choice not many others seem to be picking I say Guderian. Why? He was largely responsible for developing the blitzkrieg that overrun Poland, France, and the Low Countries. However, his conquests went down the tube largely because of Germany's size, Hitler's horrible strategies (topped onl and lack of effectiveness at controlling territories. Not only this, but he helped develop modern tank warfare from the antiquated WW1-era style and is responsible for alot of the basic strategies we use today. Any serious tank warfare/WW2 buff should read Achtung! Panzer by Guderian himself. It is a very detailed look at the development of modern tank warfare and Germany's armored buildup before the war.

true, this is indeed a herd vote as it was Guderian who developed the panzer strateges that are still used extensively today.

Yes, but his theories themselves owe much to a British officer who wrote some of them down before him, Lidell Hart I think his name was. The difference really is that the Germans put them into action before anyone else and combined their armoured forces at one (or select) strategic point.

Originally posted by bholed
There is a view that the best Soviet Front comd was Rokossovsky (1st Byelorussian).


I agree, and I vote him for the best general. ;)

He wasn't Stalin "favourite general" as Jukov, but still managed to achive some great succeses with few resources available.

Regards,

P.S. : If the "political aspects" are included I would vote probably for De Gaulle. He succeded to bring back France to the "table of winners" at the end of the war ... even that the premature eliberation of Paris caused a lot of trouble for Allied supply lines ... :p

Because of the mentioned reasons I vote for Guderian. He had also a plan to buil a mssive tank army until 1944. In summer 1944 they should be thrown onto the Russians. But he was dismissed by Hitler, so Kursk happened...
Hitler, Gröfaz how he wanted to be called (Größter Feldherr aller Zeiten (greatest Captain of all times), better would have been Größter Fatzke aller Zeiten (Fatzke~ arrogant idiot)), was the the reason why the superior German marshalls were not successfull.
Rommel was good but not as good as Guderian. Many other Germans I could mention who were able to get the honour of the best WW2 General, but it is Guderian who has at least a small advantage.
Patton and Monty lacked in strategical genius. Monty is the most overestimated General of ww2. His only main victory El Alamain was only a victory because of the lack of German supplies. Therefore he nearly lost the battle before the lack became serious. Later Market Garden which was the last German victory in this war: Montys plan to attack at one stronges points of German defense. Because of this Germany was defeated in 1945 and not ´44.
I can´t really say any thing about Zhukov. His great victories were victories because of Hitlers failing orders. And he won his battles with a high blood tribute. Over 1 million own soldiers at Stalingrad and in the battle of Berlin where only chaothic resistance by German forces was he lost (from the Oder river) 500.000 men to take Berlin. Through the last defending army instead of flanking and encircling them. When he finally took Berlin his forces were too exhausted and too weak to advance further more. 1 intact German army would have been able to retake the Berlin, the Oder line, Breslau and perhaps Königsberg until Russian troops copuld have stopped them.
Churchill wanted indeed having the German divisions intact for a war with Russia. And even in May 1945 when the first Germans came back my Grandma once told me they were very keen to fight against the Russians. In that year most of the Germans defended the country and not Hitler. Perhaps if he died in 1944 and the Prussian coupe d´état under Stauffenberg was successfull a democratic Germany and the allies would have also been able to liberate Russia. I mean mass production of German Panther tanks and Me 262 fighter in the USA would have been enough to take Moscow at least in ´46. But that´s only speculation.
At last I say Guderian was the best general of WW2.

Adler

that would have been an interesting reality if the bomb plot suceeded and hitler died with it. I wonder where history would have turned.

MacArthur would be the best. Vowing to return to the Philipines and doing so. His other offenses in the Pacific were well-done especially since they were against such different enemy than European and American standards.

Yama****a and Zhukov would be my other choices.

I disagree, during the campaign in New Guinea lightly armed Australians held a pass 7 miles wide whilst vastly outnumbered by some of the finest troops in the entire Imperial Army. McArthur on the other hand had convinced himself of the opposite, that the enemy was smaller in number and repeatedly ordered the Australians to attack. Despite the terrain on the Kokoda trail being pretty much the worst in the entire Pacific (and that's saying something).

He even went so far as to tell Washington that the Australians "lacked fighting spirit" MacArthur "persuaded" australian commanders to criticise the men on the trail (despite the fact that none of them had been anywhere near it). The officers on the trail were demoted or dispersed for not following MacArthur's ruinous ideals. The Australians fought a masterful fighting withdrawl, inflicting heavy losses despite their inequality in arms and numbers. Worn down my disease, lack of food and battle losses the Japanese withdrew.

For that single act of stupidity in command and stubborn refusal to admit he was wrong, or recognise the real heroes of that campaign I'd say others deserve the accolade before such a man.

Originally posted by Adler17
Monty is the most overestimated General of ww2. His only main victory El Alamain

I take it that you've never heard of Operation Overlord then ;)

...was only a victory because of the lack of German supplies. Therefore he nearly lost the battle before the lack became serious.

Monty never came close to losing El Alamain - while the first few days of the battle went poorly (due to a combination of flawed plans and the poor level of training in much of the 8th Army), Monty was able to reshape his plans and emerge victorious. Incidently, the victory at El Alamain was due to more then just material and numerical superiority (though these were critical) - the elite Australian 9th Division played a critical role by simply outfighting the Germans at the northern end of the battle area.

Also, Rommel's defeat at El Alemain was also due to his foolish decision to try and defend the place, and not one of the more easily defended places to the east. While many blame Hitler for this, in reality, Rommel deserves the blame due to allowing himself to become over-extended after the great Gazala victory.

Incidently, fans of Rommel need to consider his insane plan to defend the Atlantic Wall - a plan which ignored the repeated evidence that German, Italian and Japanese were unable to stop any invasion force from getting ashore due to the Allies overwealming naval support. This leason should have been learned from Scily, Salerno, Tarawa, etc.

Over 1 million own soldiers at Stalingrad

Zhukov wasn't in command at Stalingrad - he was busy conducting Operation Mars near Moscow (which ended in disarster and 500,000 Soviet killed and wounded). Incidently, German losses at Stalingrad were proportionatly worse - 500,000 fatalities seems to be a reasonable estimate (if you include POWs).

1 intact German army would have been able to retake the Berlin, the Oder line, Breslau and perhaps Königsberg until Russian troops copuld have stopped them.

:confused: There were no intact German divisions, let alone armies. By the logic you're using, the Americans made a major mistake invading Okinawa using forces from Hawaii - after all, an intact Japanese fleet and expeditionary army would have been able to take Honolulu.

Going all out for Berlin was a sound plan to bring the war to the fastest possible conclusion. The key Soviet mistake was Stalin's decision to encourage the various Fronts to compete for the honour of capturing the city - this, and the resultingly poor liason between the fronts, resulted in unessesary haste and casulties.

Churchill wanted indeed having the German divisions intact for a war with Russia.

...briefly, before his military advisors talked some sence into him. The British cabinet would never have approved such a plan, and if they had the Americans would have vetoed it.

Perhaps if he died in 1944 and the Prussian coupe d´état under Stauffenberg was successfull a democratic Germany and the allies would have also been able to liberate Russia.

In 1944 the Allies wanted to utterly destroy Germany, and not join with it in any kind of alliance. Unconditional surrender was more then a slogan; it really was the Allies rock-solid war aim. The only place where an Anglo-German alliance against the Soviets was taken seriously was in the fevered minds of the Nazis. The Allied governments certainly didn't want to wage war on their Soviet allies, especially not on the side of the hated Germans (remember, the Allied public was fairly well informed on what the Germans were getting up to in the countries they had conqured, especially the Soviet Union).

Originally posted by Mobilize
MacArthur would be the best. Vowing to return to the Philipines and doing so.

OTOH, returning to the Philipines wasn't necessary to win the war in the Pacific - Taiwan would have been a better choice as a jumping off spot against Japan.

His other offenses in the Pacific were well-done

Not true - MacArthur should have been sacked for his bungling of the Papuan campaign, which resulted in thousands of unessary Allies casualties, and the sacking of some very fine Australian and American generals. The landings on Biak in 1944 were also a stuff up.

MacArthur deserves condemation for his disarsterous attempt to defend Luzon in 1941-42. Aside from the famous blunders which resulted in the destruction of his air forces, his idiodic decision to drop the sound pre-war plan of only defending Bataan in favour of a lashed-together attempt at stoping the Japanese on the beaches resulted in an easier Japanese victory.

Woah, I can't believe I'm the first person to vote for Eisenhower. Are you people talking about the same WWII that I am? =)

Rommel indeed....bah. I think the question was "Best WWII General" not "Most talked about General on The History Channel"

:D

Ike had his failings too, he did after all permit such campaigns as Market Garden to go ahead, either without checking on the plans (which were blatantly flawed) or not recognising the problems inherent in it. Some accuse him of being overly cautious in regards to supplies in the NW europe campaign also, hampering the advances of the less cautious generals like Patton.

I thought Market Garden was Monty's screw up?

Either way, it doesn't matter, Ike owns all of the other pansies on this list hands down. He would whomp Rommel's ass with one hand and MacArthur with his other while kicking the crap out of Zhukov and Guderian blindfolded all while Bradley and Monty would just fall down and die at the thought of even messing with The Man. Ike > *.

:D

Monty planned it, Ike certainly gave the go ahead, I doubt an operation on that scale could have proceeded without the basic outline if not overall plan passing Ike's eyes. He holds ulitmate responsibility for overall planning. Montgomery was a cautious general not given to fighting campaigns without severe levels of planning. If you're going to give anyone's plan for a race into Germany the go ahead, Monty would not be it.

Other than that I find your wholehearted generalisation of Ike's abilities a little basic. Ike was a grand strategist, if he had an opposite it was Rundstedt, Von Kluge, Hitler even. Rommel, Bradley and Montgomery and most of the others were on a totally different level.

I agree he was reasonably good at his job but this idea that he'd run rings round people who weren't on the same strategic level as him I find intruiging. Are you suggesting that given command of any size of force that Ike was the finest of them all? I dispute this.

He was a good grand strategist, he had his faults and permitted a number of half thought out campaigns he should have vetoed. He was not god, nor would he have been likely to have been as good at commanding battlefield corps or divisions as the others.

Case, Monty had poor plans as you admit. And sure after Gazala the Afrikakorps had big supply problems, bigger than before. But that was Hitlers fault. As he was unwilling to send Rommel the supplies he needed and didn´t take Malta, which would have been meant the splitting of the allied forces, he doomed this campaign nearly from the beginning. So Montys victory was not worthy to become a masterpeice in the art of war.
The German casualities in Stalingrad were a bit over 250000 men, not more. And in the same month German troops were able to destroy at least 4 Soviet armies completely, ironically also the 6th Soviet army.
Concerning the last thought of retaking Berlin I said this was possible if there was any Army. But there wasn´t. So this was hypothetically.
Also hypothetically was the situation of a successfull coupe d´état in 1944. Would the allies make peace with a democratic Germany fighting against a regimes which was as bad as Hitler or even worse or fighting with that regimes? Many allies were foes of the soviets and so it wasn´t unlikely that this alliance would break. And it broke indeed.

Adler

Originally posted by Adler17
Monty had poor plans as you admit.

Sure, not everything that came out of his planning was a brilliant gem of strategy. However, he was generally quick to recongise when things went wrong, and adjust his strategy to correct for whatever problems had showed up. That's a perfectly valid way of operating. Montogmery's biggest personal blunder was his ceaseless addempts to deny that this was how he operated - he prefered to cultivate a myth that all his battles went according to his plan.

And sure after Gazala the Afrikakorps had big supply problems, bigger than before. But that was Hitlers fault. As he was unwilling to send Rommel the supplies he needed and didn´t take Malta

:confused: No commander ever has unlimited resources - all have to work within their logistical constraints set by external factors. Rommel gambled that the British army would collapse at El Alemain, and lost spectacularly. A more sensible strategy would have been to stop at a defencible position once supply problems became critical.

Concerning the last thought of retaking Berlin I said this was possible if there was any Army. But there wasn´t. So this was hypothetically.

Yet you were using this 'hypothetical' army to criticise the Soviet's strategy of focusing on Berlin, which was a valid strategy considering that there was no such full strength German Army. If the Germans had had a full strength Army on the Soviet's flanks it's safe to assume that the Soviets would have used a different strategy then the one they historically used.

The German casualities in Stalingrad were a bit over 250000 men, not more.

I'd say that that's much too low - at least 100,000 were killed after the Soviets encircled the city (see Beevor's Stalingrad) with about another 100,000 going into captivity. As the Soviet 'one million' figure rightfully includes casualties incurred in the entire campaign in the Stalingrad region, German casualties should be calculated on the same basis, and this means more then just the 6th Army's losses in the final stages of the battle. As the Germans experianced the same meatgrinder fighting in the city that the Soviets did before their counter-offencive and were lucky that they didn't lose an Army Group following the encirclement of the 6th Army, their losses would have been much higher then those incured at Stalingrad per-se. I'll conceed that the figure of 500,000 fatalities is too high, though not by much.

Would the allies make peace with a democratic Germany fighting against a regimes which was as bad as Hitler or even worse or fighting with that regimes?

No. It really is as simple as that. Despite their propaganda, the Allies weren't on some kind of crusade to rid the world of brutal totalitarian governments - they were out to destroy the countries which had attacked them. If the Germans had somehow elected a democratic government(!) they would have insisted that it surrender unconditionally to the Allies and USSR. If it failed to do so the war would have continued. As I wrote previously, the Allies knew what the Germans had been getting up to in their occupied territories. It defies belief that they would have even considered helping the Germans re-invade the USSR.

The Allies bent over backwards to help the Soviets in full knowledge of the nature of Stalin's regime. All ideological and moral differences were put aside in the name of the common goal of defeating Germany. As Chuchill famously said in defence of aid to the USSR 'If Hitler invaded Hell I'd give the devil a favourable word'.

Many allies were foes of the soviets and so it wasn´t unlikely that this alliance would break. And it broke indeed.

Yeah, after the Germans had been defeated. Before that, the Allies were constantly looking for ways to increase their co-operation with the Soviets during and after the war. The Allies never even considered making a seperate peace with the Germans, having signed a treaty with the Soviets promising to never do such a thing. When Himmler tried to get the Allies to join in a common cause against the Soviets his representative was dismissed out of hand. As I said before, the only place where the alliance between the Western Allies and USSR was going to break was in the fevored minds of the Nazis.

The problem you do not see, Case, are the big differences in the governments even in the war. And I critizise the Soviet "strategy" not only because of the exhausting by taking Berlin. They had only one strategy: mass attacks coûte que coûte. That´s why Zhukow is not the best WW2 general. And I stay and say IF there was a German army intact (if there was not Ardennen offensive or attempt of retaking Budapest there would have been 4 reserve armies left) they would have driven the soviets out of Berlin. I know there wasn´t.
The other thing is the allies knew the Russian are poor allies. They knew they were also devils (I mean the government). And don´t you think the things changed very much if Hitler would have been killed? All Nazi attempts to make peace were useless, but also a free Germany were unable to make peace with the allies? In 1944 it was POSSIBLE to block both sides to make peace with one side. IIRC Stalin wanted to make a seperate peace with Hitler even in 1944... So I think a peace with Germany without an unconditional surrender was possible. And the Morgenthau plans you try to mention to destroy Germany were never realistic nor had only one chance of being exercized.
Churchill was also a foe of the Soviets. So this alliance was doomed at the point when Hitler was away. And reality shows us that was right.

Adler

He didn't have a chance to do much militarily during the war, but De Gaulle was the only French general to speak out against the idiotic Maginot Line that gave Germany such an unbelievable head start in the war. He was a proponent of a mobile, mechanized army supported by air. He was overruled by the nitwits that preferred to dig bunkers.

Originally posted by Adler17
In 1944 it was POSSIBLE to block both sides to make peace with one side.

Sure, it was possible. It wasn't going to happen though. The Allies knew that they had won, are weren't going to let the Germans off lightly. They were out to punish Germany for having started two world wars in 25 years.

IIRC Stalin wanted to make a seperate peace with Hitler even in 1944...

That's the first I've ever heard of that - what's your source? Stalin tried to make peace in 1941, but seems to have concluded that he could beat the Germans following their defeat outside Moscow. By 1944 Stalin would have known that complete victory was almost inevitable, so I can't see why he'd want to make peace.

And the Morgenthau plans you try to mention to destroy Germany were never realistic nor had only one chance of being exercized.

Sure, the Morgenthau plan was too extreame to ever be put into place. But the Allies did destroy Germany. During 1944-45 they deliberatly bombed German cities to bring the realities of war home to German civilians. Following the peace Germany was broken up into occupation zones, and wasn't allowed to have it's own military forces until the mid 1950s. If the Western Allies and Soviets hadn't fallen out after the war, this occupation would have been more severe.

Churchill was also a foe of the Soviets.

Sure. But he was also the leader of a bankrupt second-rate power with a rapidly declining ability to wage war against anyone. By 1944 Roosevelt was calling the shots, and he was very keen to stay on good terms with the Soviets. Anyway, even if the Germans been able to surrender to the Allies, Churchill wouldn't have remained on the scene for long - the British people were totally sick of the Conservative government, and would have voted him out in the election which he had to hold as soon as the fighting was over (much like they did in 1945).

I nevertheless think the chance for peace would be there in 1944. An unconditional surrender could have been avoided. The western powers were not very keen about the rising power of the soviets. They WERE the new enemy in their points of view after the war. Sure Churchill was not elected after the war and Atterly (IIRC his name) was a big fool. Nevertheless if Churchill/Roosevelt made peace with Germany Atterly/ Trueman didn´t have the chance to change much.
I read about a secret try of Stalin in the beginning of 1944 to make peace with Germany. He was a very careful man who wasn´t sure about his victory- and he wasn´t sure about his allies! So it should have been much easier for Germany to make peace in the status qou ante than you think. Sorry I do not remember the source.

Adler

The western powers were not very keen about the rising power of the soviets.

How do you explain Yalta and Churchill's 'zones of influence' deal with Stalin then? The allies seemed to be perfectly willing to let the Soviet's hold on to Eastern Europe.

Yalta was in the beginning of 1945, or am I wrong? So I speak of 1944. Germany had still strong forces. Italy was a long and bloody war, Germany had enough resources to make the war longer if Hitler didn´t make his foolish orders. So Yalta was at the end of the war when everything was nearly too late. But in 1944 a democratic Germany could ahve made at least a seperate peace in the west forcing Stalin to make also peace. If not he would have lost the allied help. That would not be so good for him.

Adler

Atlee was not a big fool, he and his government brought in the welfare state to this country, something that alone would bring him credit. Having said that I do not personally feel that the western allies, and especially not the Russians would ever accept the notion of a democratic united germany remaining free of their immediate post war control due to the threat such a nation could pose. Russia was more than capable of crushing Germany alone by attrition after about 1943, though it would certainly have taken time.

The point about 1944 would depend on the date taken. If prior to D-Day I can think of no reason why the allies would sue for peace against a Germany that still controlled most of western Europe. If during the Normandy fighting, again the allies would demand concessions and the liberation of europe. If post Normandy, your point about the armed forces is irrelevant, what forces the Germans had in the west were mostly decimated in the Falaise pocket, any deal done then wouldn't leave many troops to send to the eastern front as most of the divisions had ceased to exist as coherent formations by then. Given that the allies had no logic in suing for peace when they could just as easily as they saw it crush the remnants of the German forces. After this date the only period during which the German army held any coherent mass in the west would have been the Bulge period, and by this stage the Russians were far too close to victory for such forces to have much effect overall. Because of this I conclude that any western allied peace would lead to Germany being crushed by Russia sooner or later, and being occuppied by Russia completely. This would never be acceptable to the west.

Beyond this I don't agree on your assumption that the Allies would sue for peace with a democratic Germany. Germany even without hitler and his goons in the Waffen SS and Gestapo (whom would have vehemently opposed such a nation being formed and comprised a fair proportion of germany's strike units) was still something the allies would have found unpalatable. Not only would it have been a military threat, it would have had to return land taken under Hitler, loose it's connections to Austria and so on. The armed forces were rife with officers who supported the Nazi cause, some vehemently, the allies would certainly have had issues with allying with a country who's army consisted of many a Nazi sympathiser.

I doubt the allies would have considered the surrender of Germany simply because they had seen the results of not enforcing the peace of WWI on the country. They knew by then that the German nation and army was shot through with Nazi ideology and even removing Hitler would not ensure that another might not rise in his place later, doing to the democracy what Hitler did to the republic of the 20s and 30s. No I think that the only way the western allies would have considered such a move would have been in the event of a serious military catastrophe such as the failiure of D-day or similar. They were on the up, the western allies had the bomb to deter Russia and the Germans on the run. Neither millitarily, or politically did it make sense to allow conditional surrender. Simply making the country democratic would not have been enough to satisfy the west, this time the country had to be taught the lesson that WWI failed to teach.

"Incidently, fans of Rommel need to consider his insane plan to defend the Atlantic Wall"

The Atlantic Wall required YEARS in order to be "invasion proof." Rommel had several months to fix the gaping holes. Fighting the Allies in the interior would be even more distaterous which was proven in the Hedgerows of Northern France.

By then Allied numerical superiority was far too great to defend against.


"The allies seemed to be perfectly willing to let the Soviet's hold on to Eastern Europe."

The Allies had no other choice. These states were under firm Soviet control. The only muster of hope for Democracy in the region was the '45 Pole rebellion in Warsaw.

Seeing that the resistance was pro-democratic, Moscow allowed the Germans to crush it before entering the city themselves.

Originally posted by Case
[b]

How do you explain Yalta and Churchill's 'zones of influence' deal with Stalin then? The allies seemed to be perfectly willing to let the Soviet's hold on to Eastern Europe.

I think Churchill was shrewd enough to realise that Stalin would do what he pleased with the conquered territory so he did his best to make a deal to have British influence in the futures of Greece and Yugoslavia.

Rommel would not have lost in Africa had he actually had fuel and ammo--both which Hitler did not reinforce him with believing that German tanks were superior even without fuel and ammo.

Originally posted by covok48
The Atlantic Wall required YEARS in order to be "invasion proof."

Actually, it was never going to be 'invasion proof'. For all intents and purposes, Omaha Beach was one of the complete sectors of the wall. It delayed the Allied breakout into the interior by a few hours and inflicted a few thousand casualties. Once naval fire support was brought to bear, the defences were quickly destroyed. Painful, but in the scheme of things it was no big deal - the Omaha beachead ended up being the one which the allies had the easist time expanding!

The Allies had no other choice. These states were under firm Soviet control. The only muster of hope for Democracy in the region was the '45 Pole rebellion in Warsaw.
Originally posted by rilnator
I think Churchill was shrewd enough to realise that Stalin would do what he pleased with the conquered territory so he did his best to make a deal to have British influence in the futures of Greece and Yugoslavia.

I agree with both of you here. As I pointed out, the Western Allies had no particular desire to liberate Eastern Europe from totalitarian rule - they just wanted to crush Germany and end the war. Whatever thier differences with the Soviet Union, they certainly didn't extend to any desire to wage war against it. Their basic strategy was to give the Soviets what they wanted so that the war could be brought to the quickest and most 'neat' conclusion.

Incidently, I don't think that the Warsaw rebels were fighting for 'democracy' - they were nationalists fighting in the name of the remnants of Poland's pre-war dictatorship. ;) While I *suspect* that many of them favoured democracy over a return to dictatorship, their main goal was to give the anti-soviet Polish forces a propaganda victory by liberating Warsaw themselves (much like Tito suceeded in doing by grabbing Belgrade ahead of the Red Army). Unfortunatly, their timing was as bad as their political judgement, so the revolt ended in a tragic failure.

The Czech uprising of 1945 is a much better example of a 'pro-democracy' movement.

Originally posted by Fallen Angel Lord
Rommel would not have lost in Africa had he actually had fuel and ammo--both which Hitler did not reinforce him with believing that German tanks were superior even without fuel and ammo.

What's your source for this 'belief' of Hitler's?

While Hitler was a murderous warmongering idiot, he wasn't that foolish (or at least not until 1944-45).

The joke about Hitler's belief wasn't serious, but hitler refused to send Rommel desparately needed reinforcements.

that was an bad move on his part. Yet another time when the generals have a good plan, Hitler comes along and ****s it up.

As it is mentioned above the western allies needed the soviets to fight against Hitler. And the German forces in 1944/45 fought nearly only for Germany- for Hitler they didn´t fight for a long time now. Most Germans didn´t want Hitler as ruler, but he was a dictator under whom I don´t want to live. They were mostly no Nazis but only soldiers fighting for their side.
If Hitler died in 20th July 1944 it was almost too late for a mild peace for Germany but only almost. Germany had still the capablities to beat the Allies hard and deadly. Much harder than they did because of Hitler. And if they wanted to destroy Germany what nation should get the place? USSR? Stalin was feared and only an ally because of Hitlers attack. Churchill thought a new war was coming shortly after the war with Germany- against Russia. And he was right, but it was not a "hot" war...
France? France was beaten and still occupied. No strenghth for some years. They were not able to fill the German power. The UK was also too weak and the US had not teritories in Europe. They needed Germany and it was clear in 1944 as well as in 1948 (Berlin Air Bridge). So a democratic Germany which lost a war was not a big danger for Europe and if embedded in western treaties (NATO, UN, EC/ EU) a worthy ally against the Russians.
That´s why in 1944 such a peace was possible.

Adler

Originally posted by Sarevok
that was an bad move on his part.

In what way? Rommel's forces were equivalent to about 1% of the forces in action on the Eastern Front, where the war was going to be won or lost, and which were also desperate for reinforcements.

The desert war was a sideshow for Germany, and Rommel was lucky to have recieved the resources he did get. The prospect of advancing through the Middle East was a pipe dream which the Germans had no realistic means of ever carrying out, something which Hitler correctly concluded. The only realistic payoff Germany could hope to gain from the war in North Africa was that which she suceeded in achieving: encouraging the British Commonwealth to waste its resources in an essentially pointless campaign.

If Rommel hadn't been so incompetant as to outrun his supply he could have prolonged this sucess for longer then he did. Instead, he advanced too far and compounded the error by trying to defend an indefensible line.

Yet another time when the generals have a good plan, Hitler comes along and ****s it up.

And a good thing too.

(Incidently, I hardly see how diverting a large chunk of the German Army away from the critical theatre to carry out a logisitcally impossible march across the Arabian desert in a doomed attempt to capture oilfields which the British would be certain to destroy counts as a 'good plan'.)

Ok, I don’t know which 1944 Germany you know, but most things I’ve read don’t correspond to your assumptions so easily. Germany was embedded with Nazi ideology, the police, the Gestapo, the Hitler youth, the Newspapers, the armed forces, and many other aspects of the country all were in some degree (and most nearly totally) controlled by Hitler or his minions. The soldiers may not have all been fighting for Hitler I agree, but many in the German high command were either loyal to the regime, loyal to Hitler specifically or simply refused to act against the regime. In any such event as the death of Hitler it is not the individual soldier usually who affects the outcome of events, but the officers who they followed. Then add in the Gestapo and SS, two organisations who would bitterly oppose the removal of the Nazi party from the control of Germany and were even more rife with Hitler/Nazi supporters than the rest of the country.

Taking July 1944 as your start point then shall we? The German armies were on the verge of being caught in the Falaise pocket within a week of such events, a crucial period during which chaos would be reigning back in Germany. Within a month they would be cut off almost completely and the Wermacht in the west would cease to exist as a coherent fighting machine. Even assuming as you might that this was largely avoided, the peace with the west would not have been automatic (more on this in a moment), fighting would have gone on for some time. Even then assuming the peace occurred how many troops stationed in the west could Germany really send east? You’re suggesting somehow that what, the germans could just mass transfer their forces to the eastern front, leaving the entire western front with just a skeletal force with the western allies still at their backs? Please… The reality would simply be that they would still need to concentrate a serious force in the west, especially as I believe the allies would not have desired to fight the Russians. The effect of not having to fight in the west might have influenced to some small degree the war in the east, but it would almost certainly not have prevented Stalin from seizing his chance to control the whole of Germany.

The system of democracy you mention… sorry but no. Germany had been ruled through strong leaders for some time, the more likely result and the (immediate consequences of the plot Von Stauffenberg lead) of the death of Hitler would have been a military junta being set up for the time being. A military divided between loyalties to duty and state, leader and morality. At the very minimum there would have been initial problems with setting up a democracy. Then add those directly opposed to it, the SS and Gestapo, these two would have just… accepted the Nazi fall from power without a power struggle? I think not.

And I don’t think the Germans did possess the power to beat the western allies in anything more than a temporary setback. This comes at a time when the western forces were about to be destroyed, their supplies were negligible to say the least, the transport rail system almost non existent and the allies getting stronger by the day, close to their supplies, superior in numbers and quantity of equipment.

Overall your analysis of the aims of the Western allies leaves much to be desired also. Churchill hated Hitler and Nazi Germany much more than he ever despised Russia. He may have recognised the need to use Germany after the war, but a Germany not under allied control was a Germany they could never trust. Germany had to be first “de-nazified” and brought to check for her actions, occupied and taught were it had gone wrong before the west could use her. The German armed forces were not properly rebuilt for some time after the war because of this lack of trust from all of the allies.

Your conclusion makes no sense frankly, why would the allies sign a peace deal with a Germany they had on the run that would leave Germany open for a Russian take-over? Why would Stalin halt when he could finish the job and take revenge for the German excesses in Russia? Why would the allies side with a nation that would still contain many high ranking Nazis in all walks of life and especially the military? Why would they accept such a nation being free to continue to exist when they had fought for 4-5 years to destroy it? How could the Germans suddenly become a democracy overnight? Why would the allies go against their every agreement between themselves and sign a separate peace deal simply because the Germans suddenly claimed they were now nice and democratic?

Would the new Germany willingly hand back the land it took under Hitler? Would the new Germany try the war criminals in it’s midst properly? How could the allies know the new Germany would not be a threat to them in future? They’d already left one war to be spoilt by the peace treaty following it, I somehow doubt they’d make the same mistake twice. All these questions and more come to mind when reading your conclusion. The western allies would be trading the certainty of controlling at least part of the post war Germany which would be democratic and under their wing for the possibility of either a Germany out of their control and not properly cleared of Nazi influence at best or a Germany owned by Russia at worst.

Finally, the Russian threat that you make so much of was lessened anyway. Both Churchill/Atlee and Roosevelt/Trueman knew full well that Russia will have been cautious about any “hot” war in the aftermath of seeing the atomic bomb results. They could be confident for the time being that Germany would not be needed until it was truly democratic and Nazi ideology had been cleared from the country for good. This is shown in the delays in rebuilding the German armed forces and the careful control of post war western Germany for some years.

The immediate aftermath of the war proves that the allies had no need for Germany to become democratic under their own design. The Western allies had much more to gain from ensuring that Germany did co-operate against Russia through their occupying influence rather than hoping she would if left to her own devices. They had more to gain by ensuring war criminals were brought to trial than hoping that Germany would and further hoping these criminals would not find a place in post war governments of Germany. Germany without being occupied and cleansed of Nazi influence properly would be a threat if only in terms of it’s uncertain future, it would be by no means guaranteed that Germany would co-operate in alliances with her former enemies either. Only through occupation could this be enforced.

Good post Hudson.

Originally posted by privatehudson
[B]Taking July 1944 as your start point then shall we? The German armies were on the verge of being caught in the Falaise pocket within a week of such events, a crucial period during which chaos would be reigning back in Germany. Within a month they would be cut off almost completely and the Wermacht in the west would cease to exist as a coherent fighting machine

...which was the state the Army in the East was in at the time of the assasination attempt. During operation Bagration, the Soviets destroyed an entire German Army Group in a matter of days, before going on to isolate Army Group North and leave AG South with a totally indefensible front. If the Soviet's logistics were up to it, they could have taken Berlin in late 1944 - the Germans really had nothing to stop them. As it was, while they paused on the Vistula, their armies in the south routed the Germans out of the Balkans.

In the west, the Allies were on the point of breaking out of Normandy and Operation Dragoon was proceeding well. Thanks to ULTRA they had a pretty good idea of the true state of the German war machine.

By August the Western Allies high command was, quite literally, expecting the war to be over by Christmas.

In short, by July 20 1944, both the Western Allies and the Soviets were certain that they were going to win the war. As such, there was no desire to cut any kind of deal with Germany. If the coup had suceeded, the Allies would have demanded unconditional surrender. If the coup leaders had refused this for any reason (including asking for time to hold elections), the war would have continued.

Thank you case, my knowledge of the eastern front is sketchy so I was unsure of the situation in the east and therefore reluctant to include it in any conclusion :) Knowing that then I conclude as do you that the Western allies had virtually no reason to even consider dealing with whomever had replaced Hitler.

after kursk and stalingrad, the germans were essentially screwed.

I admit Hitler was in total power in 1944. But Stauffenberg and his comrades had the idea of a free democratic Germany and not a Germany ruled by a military junta. They would have to do much and it was critical. Falaise and the eastern front had to be avoided with a strategical retreat. Although in retreat it was already possible to do. The best German commanders were driven off by Hitler. Guderian, Rommel, and so on. If they were back in command they would have been much more dangerous. The Soviets took Berlin with the last breath. Without a longer period of securing and resupplying they weren´t able to holt it against a German counter strike. Germany had at least 3 complete armies in reserve. They were destroyed in the Ardennes and in Budapest. If at the font they would have stopped the Russians before the German border.
The Luftwaffe had just enough planes in reseve to follow General Galland´s plan of attacking one of the 1000 bomber attacks and shooting down over 20 %. Such a victory would have a big morale influence by the allied pilots. Adding German technology like SAMs or Jet fighters, this would have been another advantage. I admit USA would have been able to rebuild these planes within a few months but the morale would have been very low. And the loss of battle proved air crews too. Thus and a good resistance in France would have lead the allies to make a peace with both sides could live. But I know that´s pure speculation and it would be very difficult to do but not impossible.
A final note: Germany had democratic traditions for nearly a century. They were democratic and Hitler was only a kind of accident because of some reasons. Nazis were a minority and most Germans would have voted against Hitler in 1944 as they did in 1933. But a revolution he had not to fear. The population had to survive the allied bombing runs.
How a peace would have been looked like, stationing allied troops and a certain reducing of sovereignity, I don´t know. But avoiding the Soviets and territorial integrity of Germany was possible.

Adler

Well clearly you don't follow the same thought process as I do so we are not going to agree on this to say the least. It assumes for one that the army could pull off the retreats whilst having almost no command stucture to co-ordinate it's various groups due to Hitler's death. It assumes that the conspirators could suceed in the ensuing power struggle for a second. Even assuming it could do both of these it assumes the allies would be niaeve enough to believe that Germany could be trusted to carry out the change to democracy and remove the criminals from it's government, remove hitler fans from the country's running and then adopt a friendly foreign policy.

An example would be that Stauffenberg and co. knew full well that the SS in and around Berlin under Himmler's control could create havoc. In return for not doing this their plan was basically to offer him the opportunity to just simply escape rather than begin a civil war! :rolleyes: That doesn't strike me as being too close to the allied needs to bring such men to justice if the Germans are letting them flee (presumably to neutral territory). This was the generally accpepted norm for the plan, Himmler and Goering were considered a danger, to prevent this the plan was to offer them protection and/or allowing them the freedom to leave Germany. This is not something that the allies would have been happy about at all. Amnesty for the criminals was not something Russia for one was likely to accept unquestioned and certainly not to avoid a civil war against a government she would dislike anyway due to her millitary and then possibly democratic nature.

The best German commanders were driven off by Hitler. Guderian, Rommel, and so on. If they were back in command they would have been much more dangerous.


Not really, tanks and planes are useless without this thing called fuel. Russia was on the verge of seizing the Romanian oil fields within a month, cutting the Panzers off from the one thing that made them even more dangerous than the commander of the army. Apart from that the conspirators would be presumed to retreat into Germany out of the occupied lands, causing a major loss of available fuel anyway. Even if they didn't, their ability to continue the war without the vital resources of the Balkans was extremely little. Most german attempts to counter attack from this point on failed through lack of supplies, not lack of troops, I'd see no reason why this would change just because Guderein and co. were now in charge.

The Luftwaffe had just enough planes in reseve to follow General Galland´s plan of attacking one of the 1000 bomber attacks and shooting down over 20 %. Such a victory would have a big morale influence by the allied pilots. Adding German technology like SAMs or Jet fighters, this would have been another advantage.

Uhmmm no, the USA and Britain had suffered losses like that before over the Sweinfurt raid for example and it did not seem to stop the allies one bit to be frank. German SAM's were primitive and of little real use also, do not mistake propaganda for reality. The jet planes you mention were of little use also, apart from lack of fuel for these expensive monstrosities they were mostly of little overall vast use anyway. The allies soon found counter measures to engage such planes, an example being shooting them up when they came out of a dive or in for landing and jumping them. I doubt any of these would have made a huge difference.

But I know that´s pure speculation and it would be very difficult to do but not impossible.

Not impossible, just illogical. The allies had no reason to deal with a Germany they could not trust and the list of things the conspirators would have to do quickly was simply too much to be able for them to do all that was needed to appease the Western Allies.

A final note: Germany had democratic traditions for nearly a century. They were democratic and Hitler was only a kind of accident because of some reasons.

Germany was also used to being lead by a strong leader in either the Kaiser or Hitler. The conspirators planned for 2/3 of the immediate government to be army officers! This does not strike me as democratic enough for the allies who had no reason to believe the Germans would change anyway given the heavy influence on German life the Nazi's had.

Nazis were a minority and most Germans would have voted against Hitler in 1944 as they did in 1933

I disagree. Hitler and co. had been in power over 11 years by then and had used that time to brainwash or persuade a good many in all walks of life to their thought process. I think you underestimate just how many Germans did support Hitler or the Nazi regime frankly. The nazi's were very good at propaganda and using such things as the church to persuade the gullible and those who did not question authority.

The Soviets took Berlin with the last breath. Without a longer period of securing and resupplying they weren´t able to holt it against a German counter strike. Germany had at least 3 complete armies in reserve. They were destroyed in the Ardennes and in Budapest. If at the font they would have stopped the Russians before the German border.

Hmmm :rolleyes: It's confidently expected that if the Germans had still maintained enough supplies for said armies (which I highly doubt, they never managed fuel for offensives like the Bulge when it mattered, or Falaise when it truly mattered) then the Russians would simply wait some time to prepare their own offensive properly. Zukhov and co. were not stupid, they would not attack under such conditions unless they had a reasonable chance of sucess.

That's assuming anyway that there would be supplies for all 3 armies, which there wasn't, so the point is a moot one. Preparation is a debateable point as well. When the Germans began the Normandy campaign the entire western forces had fuel and food enough for barely a few weeks, when the Bulge came along they lost more heavy tanks due to lack of fuel than anything else! No ammount of preparation for an attack can overcome a basic lack of fuel and other supplies overall.

Originally posted by Adler17
The best German commanders were driven off by Hitler. Guderian, Rommel, and so on.

At the time of the assasination attempt, Guderian was doing good work for an evil cause as inspector-general of Panzers, and Rommel was on leave due to injuries sustained when his car was strafed in Normandy.

The Soviets took Berlin with the last breath. Without a longer period of securing and resupplying they weren´t able to holt it against a German counter strike. Germany had at least 3 complete armies in reserve. They were destroyed in the Ardennes and in Budapest. If at the font they would have stopped the Russians before the German border.

Once again, you seem to assume that the Soviets plans were on some kind of fixed course. The all-out assault on Berlin was launched because it was the best strategy given the relative forces in the region. If the Germans had somehow had more forces a more cautious strategy would have been used. Whatever their failings at the tactical level, the Soviets were extreamly good at the strategic level. As they demonstrated during their Vistula-Oder offencive of early 1945, their armies were more then capable of encircling and reducing strongholds judged to be too strong or too economically valuable to directly assault.

Incidently, everytime the Germans did tried a counter-strike against the Soviets in 1945 they ended in failure. The Soviet forces were both too large and too competant for the Germans to hope to defeat by that stage of the war.

The Luftwaffe had just enough planes in reseve to follow General Galland´s plan of attacking one of the 1000 bomber attacks and shooting down over 20 %.

While the 1000 planes weren't ever assembeled, the Germans did historically have a few days in 1944 when well over 500 aircraft attacked the Americans. These efforts ended in miserable failure, with the American fighers slaughtering the Luftwaffe. By 1944 the US had both better fighters and vastly better figther pilots (US pilots spent something like 200 hours in training before being deployed. German pilots had something like 10 hours if they were lucky). The 1000 plane plan was never going to work.

Case and Privatehudson, you both have good arguments but some are not very accurate. Guderian was in the resistance! He became a member a few days before the assasination should be executed because of Rommel´s injuries. He had no command in this time, so he had no chance in defending Germany.
Russia made also strategic errors like Berlin!. Although they captured Berlin they moved THROUGH the last defending army although they could avoid them. Though they lost over 250000 men.
Also indeed German counterstrikes were not successfull because of the lack of nearly everything, but if there were forces, 1 army after Berlin was taken 3-4 before, they would have stopped and repelled the German forces.
German jet fighter shot down in 3 month or real fighting at least 1000 planes. This is only the figure the German pilots were credited with but many kills were not credited due to the Chaos. SAMs were also used, but not in that number. I say IF Hitler was assainated, these weapons would have been much more effective. This and Gallands plan would have been a giant defeat for the attacking USAAF. This would have stopped the bombing runs. In this time the US forces did not bomb the German refinaries where fuel was synthezized. There was a lack of fuel, but not critical, in 1944.
The SS was indeed a problem. Göring and Himmler also. But i´m not so familiar with the bomb plot so I don´t know how they wanted to solve that problem. But perhaps it wasn´t so big because Hitler never made a man to his successor. So both could have also fought each other. But that´s mere speculation.
And if having a Germany, okay I consider on some controle of the western allies, as a puffer to the Russians, a strong Germany, they would have made peace in 1944.
At least I think we are not possible to convince each other, so I think we stop the debate, unless there are no other arguments or you wish to continue.

Adler

Case and Privatehudson, you both have good arguments but some are not very accurate. Guderian was in the resistance! He became a member a few days before the assasination should be executed because of Rommel´s injuries. He had no command in this time, so he had no chance in defending Germany.

And yet he was made chief of staff of the Army right after the attempt and didn't seem to manage to defend Germany as effectively as it would seem. I've yet to see you point out my innacuracies though...

Russia made also strategic errors like Berlin!. Although they captured Berlin they moved THROUGH the last defending army although they could avoid them. Though they lost over 250000 men.

Also indeed German counterstrikes were not successfull because of the lack of nearly everything, but if there were forces, 1 army after Berlin was taken 3-4 before, they would have stopped and repelled the German forces.


No-one's claiming they were perfect, what they are claiming is that IF Germany had concentrated more forces there, Russia would do likewise and bring her industrial output to bear until the situation permitted further advances. Russian generals would not just blindly advance into 3 German armies that they knew were still intact. Their performances in 1944 in destroying and isolating the various army groups showed their ability at strategic level, this would indicate that they would avoid prohibitive casualties in such an event. They did what they did around Berlin because they knew without a doubt that Germany could not counter attack and could afford to, as has been repeatedly stated, had this been different then you can expect Russian strategy to have been different also. It was not set in stone. :rolleyes:

And this also fails to explain how to supply 3-4 such armies in the field when supplying even one of them at a time was a nightmare for the Germans.

German jet fighter shot down in 3 month or real fighting at least 1000 planes. This is only the figure the German pilots were credited with but many kills were not credited due to the Chaos. SAMs were so used, but not in that number. I say IF Hitler was assainated, these weapons would have been much more effective.

And I say otherwise. The Komet plane was more lethal to it's pilots half the time than to it's enemies due to the rocket system of propulsion being unstable and the glider based landing, and all that for only a minute or so over the enemy planes. I suggest you look here (http://www.ww2guide.com/jetrock.shtml#komet) for some info on the Komet, which gives a more accurate figure for it's contribution to allied bomber losses of 12 confirmed kills.

The 262 was of little real effect and unreliable. Of the 300 or so 262's that ever saw action it's claimed by the Americans that they shot down over 100, hardly a wonder weapon. Also Hitler had already made the design a fighter/bomber in the 1943 designs and it was in the process of changing their role to fighter that many of them were destroyed on the ground in factories rather than having any effect. Given the 262's problems it was more the Aces that they were given to that caused the losses they inflicted than the brilliance of the plane.

As I said, contary to your trust in such weapons, the allies had found ways around such planes with their normal fighters, AND were starting to produce their own jet fighters in the Meteor. I hardly think either of these would have been consistently capable of destroying the USAAF and RAF. I'd certainly like to know for one thing where this 1000 figure came from though.

One other thing, information on these SAM's would be handy. So far I know of rockets like the V1/V2 and the rockets the planes carried, but other than that the only "real" weapon that matches a SAM ideal is the Fliegerfaust, (a kind of hand held rocket launcher to be fired at planes) but since this was solely for use against low flying enemies it doesn't strike me as going to be immensely effective against bombers somehow. Some other reliable info would be good.

This and Gallands plan would have been a giant defeat for the attacking USAAF. This would have stopped the bombing runs

And I beg to differ. Your figure of 20% was suffered in the Sweinfurt raids, 3 of them to be exact, so since the first of these occurred in 1943 I don't think heavy losses especially worried the USAAF somehow. Also if you're claiming 1000 losses in 3 months, were is your justification for also claiming high losses worried the USAAF? Ally all the above to the almost total lack of fuel in any such retreat and you still think such a thing is going to happen?

This would have stopped the bombing runs. In this time the US forces did not bomb the German refinaries where fuel was synthezized. There was a lack of fuel, but not critical, in 1944.

Oh dear, define critical for me please? :confused: German western forces began the Normandy campaign with little more than 3 weeks of supplies overall and not a great deal of fuel for their armoured formations. German armour all over the Western front was often abbandonned through lack of fuel or ammunition. Besides that it would be expected that because your plan would be less effective (due to the above logic and figures on the planes) the allies would simply switch to bombing German refineries with equal effect to those they had bombed before.

The SS was indeed a problem. Göring and Himmler also. But i´m not so familiar with the bomb plot so I don´t know how they wanted to solve that problem.

As I stated, the basic plan was that to avoid Himmler using his SS to storm berlin and start a civil war, the plan was to offer him amnesty. Goering they considered less of a threat as most people hated him anyway and his power base was small, but they were prepared to do something similar to him. Doenitz they didn't strictly worry about, the navy was too weak to be a powerful force in a civil war, but they did slightly fear a triumverate of those 3 taking power in the event of Hitler's death, hence the offers of amnesty, to avoid a civil war. Given Himmler's strong position though (the Waffen SS alone numbered something like 1/4 of all mechanised and armoured formations in the entire German army at the time) it's anyone's guess as to if he'd accept.

And if having a Germany, okay I consider on some controle of the western allies, as a puffer to the Russians, a strong Germany, they would have made peace in 1944.

The biggest problem is you fail to explain why the allies would prefer a Germany they had no control over and could not trust to do what they wanted, plus risk loosing it altogether to Russia to a Germany they could at least partly control and use as a definite ally and buffer zone. I see no logical reason why the allies would trade uncertainty and lack of trust for what happened.

Originally posted by privatehudson
Also Hitler had already made the design a fighter/bomber in the 1943 designs and it was in the process of changing their role to fighter that many of them were destroyed on the ground in factories rather than having any effect.

Actually, Hitler's decision to convert the 262's didn't even have that much effect. By the time the aircraft were available in any numbers, this order had been relaxed, and most of them had been produced as fighters. The 262s design problems were what held up the aircrafts introduction, not any effect of Hitler's order.

Anyway, the 262 was a turkey. Like many of the late-war German designs, it featured high perfomance on paper, but in the real world it wasn't of much use. When they worked well, the 262 was an excelent aircraft, with excelent speed, fairly good handling characteristics and an excelent armament. However, the aircraft was fatally flawed in that it's engines had an extreamly short lifespan and that the aircraft was difficult to service and generally keep operational. As such, even if the German economy wasn't collapsing there would have been no way that the Luftwaffe could have fielded more then a handful of aircraft on any given day.

Also if you're claiming 1000 losses in 3 months, were is your justification for also claiming high losses worried the USAAF?

The RAF lost something like that many bombers during the disarsterous 'Battle of Berlin' during the winter of 1943-44. The RAF didn't collapse, and was able to make good these losses very quickly. With it's greater resources, the USAAF would have had an even easier time making good these losses.

The Me 163 Komet was not mentioned by me first. Indeed it was not a good fighter. The Me 262 was much better. Indeed it had problems, but Hudson, it was much better than anything the allies had, including Meteor and P 80. The speed was superb there was no real chance for allied fighters to catch a jet plane in the air- unless the engines of the jet plane are damaged. Indeed these engines were bad. But most kills of German Me262 fighters by allied planes was the landing of these planes. In that phase the planes were in a big danger. And yes there were only a few Me 262 in duty. IIRC only 300 planes flew combat missions. Due to the lack of fuel. Nevertheless they shot down at least 1500 planes (most propably, exact figures are not known)! This plane introduced 2/3 a year earlier would have increased the losses of allied planes dramatically.
The Germans used indeed SAMs. But only 2 or 3 types saw action: These misslies were Schmetterling (butterfly) and Wasserfall (water fall) and most probably Rheintochter (Rhine daughter). They were not used often but over 50 kills were confirmed by these few missiles
You say I had to say why the allies should do trust a Germany out of their controle even democratically. So the reason is Russia. What would have been better for Europe: a democratical Germany under a certain but not complete controle or Russian forces in middle Europe? The alliance with Stalin was doomed from the beginning to the Death of Hitler. And indeed the alliance broke. Why did the US drop the nuke on Japan? Japan wanted to surrend. The main reason and for me the only: Showing the Russians the might of the western allies. So Hitler´s death would have changed history dramaticvally in 1944.

Adler

The 262 was not a wonder weapon. You seem to believe it capable of turning on it's head the war in the air almost alone and yet you admit lack of fuel caused problems for it. How then could the germans do better if they had more of them? The Germans DID produce more of them, the problem was more that they couldn't even use most of them at any one time due to a lack of fuel and/or trained pilots for them. That and the fact that however they did it, the allies did find ways to down these planes, therefore it seems unlikely that the 262 could have any great affect on the war. And as has been correctly stated (I was mistaken before) the main issue was with production problems, that is not something that would have changed because Hitler was no longer in charge. Oh and I'd like to see where this "1500" figure comes from as well, I've not seen a site claim more than 1/8 of this, and most more like a tenth :confused:

Correct on the SAM's, but more clarification is needed, specifically I'll start with "Wasserfall". Check here (http://www.luft46.com/missile/wasserfl.html) You'll note I presume that to be even very effective it needed mass numbers of missiles, specifically 5000 per month. Predicted production was 900 and that not until 1946. Whilst it's remotely possible that under a new regime this could be speeded up slightly I somehow doubt production could be much higher than that given the fuel needs and so on. Also it's maximum ceiling was just over half that of a B17, so it's effect would possibly have been quite neglible.

The other two I'm still checking info on (mainly books at this time since I can't find too much online) so I won't comment on them, but it hardly looks promising. From what they say on Wasserfall, the projects were mostly cancelled because they would not produce effects until it was too late (usually after what we now know as the war's end), therefore resources were simply transferred.

The whole a-bomb argument is a flawed one. Japan was NOT surrendering properly or even discussing the matter in any seriousness until after the first bomb. She was busy until then preparing and planning for the defense of Japan drawing up ideas and so on. No document seems to have ever come out of Japan to prove that her cabinet would have accepted terms offered by the allies (ie unconditional) before the bomb. Whilst I don't doubt part of allied reasoning was to show the Russians their power, you cannot with all seriousness claim it was the sole reason. :rolleyes: All the faulty reasoning going can't escape the simple fact that Japan did not do what was necessary before the bomb, no-one knew if she ever would, and of the options available to the allies, the bomb ironically caused the minimum of casualties.

You ask what would have been better for Europe. I say a Germany trusted through occupation and properly removed of Nazi influence rather than one independant and still retaining some of the influence of it's former government. Would the new government have rejected Von Braun for example? (on whom many a weapon design relied) Or would they have arrested him thanks to his involvement in the Penemunde camp?* Would the new government have rounded up the SS and Gestapo properly and saw to it that justice was done? The conspirators plans say otherwise. I would say ensuring that Germany was free of such influence for good and definately aligned to the west in part is far better than some vauge possibility that she could retain her independance from Russia and then assume she would co-operate on other matters.

*Yes I am aware the US then adopted him after the war, I'm just wondering if you really believe that the democratic Germany could be so charitable in rounding up those involved in the regimes crimes, or whether they would be forced through military/political need to use them.

I voted other namely:
General Stanislaw Maczek (1892-1994!), legendary commander of the Polish 1st Armored Division which fought as part of the Canadian 2nd Corps in Normandy, playing a crucial role in the Battle of Falaise, then pushed through Northern France, Belgium, The Netherlands and finally into Germany liberating hundreds of towns and villages along the way and accepting the surrender of the German Navy in Wilhelmshaven on the final day of the war. He is the Polish Patton or Guderian and should have his place in the Armor Hall of Fame. He was a very humane person as well, not wanting to cause unnecessary suffering or cultural destruction: for example he would give orders to his men not to use artillery when trying to take an enemy-held town or city. The Dutch city of Breda was captured in this way in october 1944 by Maczek's division only with Infantry and some Tanks. The city was liberated with hardly a house damaged. The people in Breda are still extremely gratefull to him for this fact. He is buried at the Polish Military Cemetery in Breda, amongst his fallen soldiers.

More information can be found at http://www.junobeach.org/e/3/can-pep-pol-maczek-e.htm

The story of him AFTER the war is even more impressive (and tragic). He couldn't return to communist Poland, in fear of his life, like tens of thousands other Polish military that stayed in the West after WW2. He chose Scotland to live and raise his family, having to do crappy jobs, even working as a barman in one of his subordinates hotels!, his Polish nationality revoked by the communist regimes in the fifties. He kept a low profile, not mingling in the Polish government-in-exile in London, except in 1981 when he made a plea to the Polish military not to shoot at striking workers in Poland during the Solidarity period. He was fortunate to live to see the end of communism in his beloved Poland, and he was duly returned his Polish nationality by the first democratic President of Poland (he had been offered it back in the seventies by the communists, but he had refused). On the end of communism in Poland, at the age of 97, he wrote a message to all his division veterans: What a joy that we have lived to see happen what we fought for so much: the return of a democratic, free Poland.

I do not believe that all Nazis would have been punished for their crimes. The most evil ones yes, but the rest? I do believe it would have been handled like in reality it was: Who was not a Nazi to a certain degree was free, otherwise punished. And you wasn´t able to do much without the guys in the offices of the administration who were mainly Nazis, but sometimes forced, sometimes only because having no problems with their bosses. Thsi was a pity but the necessarity of the situation. Adenauer was asked why the generals of the Wehrmacht would be the generals of the new Bundeswehr. He answered the allies wouldn´t accept 18 years old generals. And some guys like von Braun wouldn´t be rejected. And if the US helped this guys too, we can only argue on a morale level, where you are absolutely right, but this level is unfortuantel not realistic.
To the Me262: There were built 1433 planes up to April 1945. 43 pilots were credited with aerial victories and 22 of them were aces in allied classements. Heinz Bär had 16 victories in the jet plane additional to 206 in the Me 109 as the best pilot. Saying there were 150 to 200 CONFIRMED kills. I admit 1500 planes might be too high but due to the chaos at the end of the war a figure of 1000 planes is realistic. The German confirmation of areial victories was very slowly and lasted sometimes over a year for one kill! So these official figures are much under the real figure at least in these times. The SAMs could have also been used earlier and only in one or two attacks but having only once ot twice beaten these bombing runs the US would have too high losses to continue the war on such a way. General Spaatz was very worried about a few Me 262 of the Kommando Nowotny. He said if the Germans would increase using this weapon he would have to stop all offensive actions against Germany! This was in August 1944! So the situation would have been not a completely other, Germany would have lost the war, but the losses would have been so high to accept a peace.
In my eyes the dropping of the nukes on Japan was a war crime. I know there would be a big discussion whether it was or not which I want to avoid, because I know about stron mainly US supporters of the dropping, so take this as my personal statement to an off topic discussion. If you´re intersted we could make another discussion of this topic but not here. At least I would say if the bombs had to be dropped a small island would have been the best. It should have been inhabited or only very few population. This would have been the same effect, but that´s too much for this topic. Sorry.
I see we can´t persuade each other so we should stop now. I say if a Germany which was democratical and under a certain not complete controle the allies would rather made peace with it than accepting Russian troops at the Elbe river. Many US generals, IIRC also Ike, were not very keen about the Russians, so these arguments are not unlogic or unrealistic. But if there are no other arguments we should stop the discussion now. But if you have other arguments I am ready to do my best to counter them.

Adler

the ME262 would have changed the war permanently had those planes been mass produced and given good pilots.

Originally posted by Sarevok
the ME262 would have changed the war permanently had those planes been mass produced and given good pilots.

The planes were mass produced (over 1000 built, which definetly counts as mass production for such an advanced aircraft) and were assigned the Luftwaffes best pilots. However, the combination of flaws in the 262s design and the lack of fuel and spare parts ment that the aircraft probably did as well as it was possible for them to do.

There's an excelent essay on the potential impact (or lack thereof) of the ME262 in the book 'The Hitler Options'. I recomend that you both read it.

Marshal Zhukov is the best general of the war, I believe that he never lost a battle to the germans. (somebody confirm this please)
Defense in depth was put into pratical use by him, he also defended Moscow, Leningrad, coodinated the counter-offensive in Stalingrad, defended Kursk, captured Berlin.
That is trully impressive.

The Me 262 was indeed flown by the aces- but only in the squadron JV 44, General Galland´s squdron. It had few machines but many famous pilots: Galland, 105 kills, Barkhorn, 301, Lützow, 108, Steinhoff, 176. But it was very difficult to use this weapon. You had only a few seconds in which you could fire the 4 MK 108 30 mm cannons. So Lützow only achieved 2 kill before he was MIA, which made him furious.
The plane was indeed superior to ALL allied planes. It was used first as bomber (Hitler´s order), only in the last month the JG 7 and the JV 44 were equipped with the fighter version. Nevertheless this plane prevented until the very end the air supremacy of allied forces over Germany.
The design of this bird was also superior: Although not built for speeds over Mach 1 it was indeed able to achieve this speed. Nevertheless it was very dangerous to fly near Mach 1. However I read a year ago in the Spiegel magazine about a German jet fighter pilot who said he flew faster than sonic speed: A friend of him had trouble with his engines and tried to escape from a dogfight but couldn´t fly at high speed. He was a lame duck. A Mustang tried to shoot him down, when his friend saw this. He gave everything he had. The plane got difficultier to fly with every mile more. But than it made a bang and the plane was okay. He was just in range of his weapon to shoot the Mustang down before the Mustang could fire at his friend. Both landed safety. But the machine of this pilot was damaged: some parts were missing, the wings were burnt partly.
This would explain some mysterious accidents with that plane and a British note in which it is said the Me 262 is nearly not flyable in high subsonic speeds but over Mach 1 flyable again.
All in all this plane was used too late in too small numbers to influence this war. 1433 planes were cunstructed indeed but only a few hundred were flown- due to the lack of fuel. In 1944 this lack was not so dramatical- the US losses would have been very high if this plane was used from August as fighter.

Adler

the plane was indeed superior to ALL allied planes. It was used first as bomber (Hitler´s order),

Uhmmm no. To quote from the site I posted a link to on the last page:

Despite Hitler's orders only one Me 262 was fitted with bomb racks and equipped to be a "blitz" bomber. The rest were produced as fighter / interceptors. On May 23, 1944 Hitler learned that the Me 262 was being manufactured only as a fighter. In a rage he removed Erhard Milch from head of procurement for the Luftwaffe and ordered that all existing Me 262 jets be converted to blitz bombers.

The initial delay was in the poor quality of the engines, not the type it was designed as. Further glances at the site also puts the total planes downed by the 262 at around 700, although earlier the figure was 100. It's doubtfull 1000 was achieved, even assuming this your logic is still flawed about the USAAF and RAF giving up the campaign if these losses were taken. Whatever the figure, if you give a semi-decent plane to someone with 100+ kills they will inflict heavy losses with it!

All in all this plane was used too late in too small numbers to influence this war. 1433 planes were cunstructed indeed but only a few hundred were flown- due to the lack of fuel. In 1944 this lack was not so dramatical- the US losses would have been very high if this plane was used from August as fighter.

By may 1944 there wasn't enough to send into combat, only in November were the first deliveries made. The plane simply can't have been in any great number in August because they simply didn't have enough of them by then, only 100 were sent in November! :rolleyes: nor was any of the squadrons who became famous using it were given them for months from that date. Some were using 262's it's true, partly in training squadrons and some saw action around August, but production was not severely delayed by Hitler's order, it was delayed by engine problems and the rare materials used building said engines followed by a need to train pilots in it's use. Unlike Hitler's later thoughts, men need training before being thrown into new planes. :D

I still fail to see how this would have severely affected the war. Even more fuel in August would fail later in the war when the fuel was used up, Germany did not tend to be able to maintain a reserve during this stage of the war and the loss of Romania did not help one bit either. This surplus of fuel would not last, the 262s would soon be grounded en masse even had they appeared heavily in August. Allied planes may have been "inferior" but they also adapted themselves to defeat this new threat. (1/3 of all 262's in action were shot down alone by the Americans) The British Meteor had more reliable engines though slower, so take your pick as to superior there. Whatever the plus or minus points of the 262 it was an expensive luxury that the Germans would have been better off without and building more FW190s. Easier and cheaper to produce, still good enough to down the bombers in such numbers and did not require masses of time to develop only to discover it's engines were awful and expensive.

If the Germans had one major fault in production style it was their tendency to diversify into vast numbers of new and expensive designs at times when using one or two tried, tested and proven designs would do them just as well. The 262 is a prime example of this. It was the only Jet fighter of the many they tried that even came close to working decently, but it still drew valuble fuel and resources, production labour and factories from existing planes at a time when all of these were in shortage.

Whatever it's qualities it DID have failings and the allies DID find ways to engage it, however strange. It was therefore not going to change the war in any severe way.

The allies actually came up with some simple, but extreamly effective, ways to combat the German jets. The key to these methods was the fact that the jet fighters could only operate from concrete runways, of which the Germans only had a limited number, and whose locations were known to the allies.

Defeating the Me-163 was really easy: the allies were quick to discover that the aircraft had a really short range. Once this range was known the bombers simply took courses which kept them out of range of the Me-163s bases.

As the Me-262 had a respectable range, this tactic couldn't be used. However, it was quickly discovered that the aircraft had to fly slow and straight for a long time as they took off and landed at their easily identifyable bases. As a result, the Allies took to keeping standing fighter patrols over all the Me-262 bases, and these patrols inflicted very significant losses on the Me-262s (and presumably kept the planes grounded for a lot of the time). The Luftwaffe ended up having to commit a large chunk of it's FW-190 fighters to escorting the Me-262s as they took off and landed, and the jets ended up being more of a tactical burden then an asset.

yet more things about WW2 that I didnt know before.

Case I know that. Indeed this was the only way fot the allies to have the chance to catch them. In the air however they lost whereever a Me 262 was intercepting. Only luck shots could take down such a plane- unless the engine had a malfunction...
But if they were used earlier, the pilots for the first wing were ready in summer ´44, and if they could kill one or two of these big bomb squadrons (together with normal planes), the allies would have to stop bombing Germany loosing air superiority.
So this plane was damn good. But it was indeed not invulnerable, like any other thing.

Adler

But if they were used earlier, the pilots for the first wing were ready in summer ´44, and if they could kill one or two of these big bomb squadrons (together with normal planes), the allies would have to stop bombing Germany loosing air superiority.

:rolleyes: For the last time you have no idea what you are talking about here. More than once the fact that the allies DID loose large numbers of planes and/or squadrons on raids has been shown to you. Has it not sunk in yet? The allies did not run scared at heavy losses like you seem to believe, they simply were not going to give up because a few 262's appeared earlier. You are clutching at straws with no reasoning to back your claims up whatsoever. Even if they did it's to be presumed that the allies would soon after shoot them down in the methods described to you repeatedly. Even if by some miracle this failed the fuel shortage would STILL occur when rumania fell sometime later. I fail to see how with a continuous lack of fuel and the allies counter-acting their role the 262s could have continued to clear the skies of Germany, and that's assuming they could in the first place, which annecdotal evidence from other heavy losses raids shows it's infinitely unlikely.

Then you have to get round the big "IF" they had been used earlier. They almost certainly couldn't have been due to their engine troubles and other matters. No matter how far you bend the figures or ideals the 262 was severely unlikely to throw the allies off their job.

its true, the allies lost a great deal of planes in the strategig bombing raid operations, mostly due to the Flak and fighter interception.

Yes the lost many planes- but mostly 20- 30 planes per attack. Rarely more, but then up to 120 planes. Only 2 or 3 times this happened. And yes their losses could be compensated- but just to that degree. If loosing 500 to 1000 planes once or twice the whole strategy would become too expensive, not in material losses but in human losses. A B 17 or B 24 had a crew of 10. So loosing a few hundred planes per attack, even the US couldn´t cpmpensate that. So loosing one or two of these raids in such a way, the strategig bombing offensive would have stopped; also the way to Germany would now be much longer and more expensive. And in these days the fuel situation was not so critical. Even the loss of the Rumanian oil fields would not be so dramatically since the refineries could work with coal (I know this was much more expensive, but...). And if the air offensive would have to be stopped the German air fields were also secure giving the allies no possibility to catch the jet planes.
This WAS possible so the use of Me 262 fighters, also with their problematic engines, in 1944 would have been critical for the allied bombing commands.

Adler

its all a what-if situation. It is one that continues to amaze me that so many things could have changed had some small actions occured.

The fate of empires can be changed by very small things: A stupid general in a critical position, weather, bravery or luck. Thats´why even small changes can have dramatic influences. Military commanders are calling this the Hinge factor.

Adler

well, it is indeed a very true thing.

I would say Rommel. His effort in Africa is still textbook material at strategy classes around the world. And the Italians under his command performed like Scipios Africanus's centurions.

OOO, I like this thread. I recall reading in Albert Speer's memoirs of the SAM's existence in 1942, but never anything else. I find it interesting that they did finally decide to use them.

Since there are Admirals in the poll, I voted other. Even before I learned the name Cunningham, I was just amazed at what he did. I took this poll as a commanders poll, so I had to vote for Cunningham (other).

I like the debate as to whether a 1945 western alliance could have succeeded. I do not doubt that it could have been possible.
I have heard of stranger ideas. I don't feel like digging up the citations to argue it, but I do not believe that Hitler ever really wanted to invade Britain; I think he wanted them neutral or as allies.

I read in a book on MI-6 that most of the personel viewed WWII as an annoying diversion from the real enemy, the Soviet Union (at least by those that weren't double agents: Philby, etc..)

None of the above headquarters Premadonnas. Any of them wounded in front-line combat?

The New Zealand ex-dentist General Freyberg. whenever the
situation was really really bad they'd drop him in.

There's more to being a general than shovin' flags around a map.

A very large number of German and Soviet Generals were wounded and killed in combat, to include full generals.

Only the Western Allies had the habit of keeping their generals behind the lines, with veryfew exceptions (Patton isn't one of them).

If I remember correctly, Montgomery was seriously wounded as a junior officer in WWI. The others I don't know about. And frankly, by WWII generalship had progressed from the stage where leading attacks in person and getting suicidally brave were the yardsticks of a fine general.

Michael, Hitler hoped until the very end the British would switch sides. When getting an order once a young soldier asked him whether the war is lost. He answered yes, if the British wouldn´t see the USSR were the real enemy. But he said then, soon they would see that. He phantasized. But this was not the first time...
I also doubt Hitler would have invaded Britain, but he was unpredictable. If the Germans won the BoB in 1940 it would have been very close for the British...
Ozz, i think Rommel was injured. Many German generals like Rommel and Guderian were also at the first line. This was risky too.

Adler

Polish generals like Maczek, Sosabowski, Anders or admirals like Unrug (WW1 Kriegsmarine Submarine officer, later chief of the Polish fleet) were also always at the front line, battle hardened from WW1, the 1919-1920 Polish-Soviet War, 1939 September campaign and so on.

Even winning the BOB would not as you say Addler garuntee invasion, though at risk from the lack of air superiority it's hard to imagine the RN simply allowing such a thing to happen when they could intervene decisively (though loose many a ship to air power).

I don't recall, but did the Kreigsmarine or the Wermacht have the sort of equipment necessary for an invasion?

I don't believe that Hitler would have proceeded with Operation Sea Lion had the RAF lost the BoB regardless.

I suppose Churchill, with his weird fixation upon battleship sacrifice, would have order the remaining R Class BBs to be beached at the logical invasion points.

I think I better stop though, I'm drifting too far off topic.

Its interesting to have people educated in such a variety of the participating nations discuss this subject, and in a civilized way too.

IIRC there was not sufficient or capable specialised invasion craft for the job and much of the initial transport would have been via rhine barges or similar which were not the best of transports to say the least. I also agree though that sea-lion was unlikely to be a serious consideration given the escape of the army at dunkirk and the strong position of the RAF and RN.

Yes there weren´t enough specialized landing vessels. So every boat afloat should be used. How realistic it was to do such an invasion with boats slowlier than the Roman invasion ships, can be doubted, however it could be possible. But it was unrealistic either.
If Britain lost the BoB and Churchill would use his BBs as swimming batteries ont the ground they would have been a perfect target for German pilots. This would also clear the way for German BBs and cruisers into the Atlantic. There they would have sunk each convoy they get without a big threat. Then Britain would have made peace being without any supplies. This would have given Hitler a free back to make the Operation Barbarossa. And the Operation Seelöwe would only have been an operation like a fleet in being.

Adler

Originally posted by privatehudson
If I remember correctly, Montgomery was seriously wounded as a junior officer in WWI. The others I don't know about. And frankly, by WWII generalship had progressed from the stage where leading attacks in person and getting suicidally brave were the yardsticks of a fine general.

You are correct, but the question was best general, not best
field marshall. Just making a point that the best general is
not necessary a winning general, but the general who makes
the best use of tactics, material and moral (backseat generals
don't get max. moral).

If you look at most of the commanders there, most don't qualify in your category of general, I think the term was just a broad one, used to cover the different officers. As for morale, that depends, Rommel was good at morale, but wasn't constantly leading from the front. On the other hand he did tend to eat and live like his men did and work his backside off. I agree the best general might not be the one who wins all the time, but he won't always also be the one who gets the most combat wounds ;)

I good General in the status of Corps or Division should still be colose enough to the front to be vulnerable to artillery and air attack, from a practical standpoint.

Yes, but how many of those spent the last years of the war at that level of command? You can hardly advise against the likes of Rommel or Manstein simply because they were doing their job, where they were supposed to be doing it.

I think some of these people shouldn't even be on the list... Eisenhower was a great mediator (between British and American commanders) and a glorified quartermaster, but not a brilliant general.

I find it intriguing that Patton toured the French countryside up and down the coast and into the Loire Valley on foot and horseback in 1912 because he was convinced he would lead army to victory on that ground some day.

On a sidenote: I purchased a book the other day claiming to list the top 500 military commanders of all time. I was extremely dismayed when I saw the Lord Cardigan in the book (he commanded the Charge of the Light Brigade) -- I guess that just goes to show how much the judgement of a General is subjective...

I am sure that book valued bravery and dedication to cause.

I don't fault Army and Army group commanders from not bieng at the front. But the majority of gernerals are not at that level but rather the Corps and Division.

I honestly don't think Eisenhower did anything special that anyone else couldn't have done. He dealt in gernal terms with everything, which admittedly is what someone in hsi position did. His brilliant idea;

Ike: "We will land at Normand"

General: "Thats a great idea Ike, how do you propose we do it?"

Ike: "How the hell should I know, I am the lofty idea guy, its your
job to figure out HOW."

I don't consider Roosevelt to be a great strategist because of this awesome and inovative idea to "win the war."

I said this on another post somewhere, but to me the best general was General O'Connor in the North African campaign. Had his driver not gotten lost i think he possibly could have outmaneuvered Rommel. Hell he took two understrength divisions on a "raid" and in the process captured 300,000 Italian Prisoners. So in my mind you can't beat that with any of the other generals on the list.


Cheers Thorgrimm

@ Patroklos: I might agree with you, but Cardigan wasn't dedicated to anything but his own ego. He literally purchased his commission, and used the men under his command in a desperate quest for self glory. The one good thing he did was drill his men incessantly (so they would make him look good) -- if he hadn't, the Charge could have been even more disastrous than it was...

@Throgrimm: capturing Italians isn't exactly an impressive feat. The Italian armed forces had a hard time conquering Ethiopia, whose main footsoldier weapon was a spear. (Before anyone gets offended, my family is from a village just outside of Rome).

WildWolverine, true but he did it the way most British did not do it, he outmaneuvered them, and most tacticians will state that the force multiplier of fortified troops is greater when those troops are not used to maneuver. Also look at the battle of Beda Fomm, just a few British troops held and captured them. A small town about 190 km/120 mi south of Benghazi on the Libyan coast road. Elements of the British 7th Armoured Division had cut across the desert and set up a road block in which the retreating 10th Italian Army was ambushed. Over 25 , 000 prisoners , 100 tanks , 216 guns , and 1 , 500 other vehicles were captured.

Cheers Thorgrimm

Originally posted by Thorgrimm
I said this on another post somewhere, but to me the best general was General O'Connor in the North African campaign. Had his driver not gotten lost i think he possibly could have outmaneuvered Rommel. Hell he took two understrength divisions on a "raid" and in the process captured 300,000 Italian Prisoners. So in my mind you can't beat that with any of the other generals on the list.


Cheers Thorgrimm

that was me:D he was fairly bold and inventive for a wwII english general

It was always my impression that O' Connor only captured just over 100,000 as 300,000 is I believe little short of the entire Italian field army that began the invasion. I could be wrong though, but I wonder where that figure came from?

Wow, what a tough poll! I picked Bradley, as he was a good mix of Patton's drive and Montgomery's patience. Patton and Rommel are my favorites to read about.

The Italian armed forces in ww2 were mostly, diplomatically said, not capable to fight against even smaller forces. Ethiopia and Greece and even Africa are good examples. In Germany we have some jokes about the Italians in WW2. They might be partly unfair, but in general they are not so far away from reality. So actions against Italians in WW2 are difficult to rate.

Adler

Originally posted by Adler17
The Italian armed forces in ww2 were mostly, diplomatically said, not capable to fight against even smaller forces. Ethiopia and Greece and even Africa are good examples. In Germany we have some jokes about the Italians in WW2. They might be partly unfair, but in general they are not so far away from reality. So actions against Italians in WW2 are difficult to rate.

Awww....Dunno about that! I read somewhere those Ethiopians had very sharp spears!
I blame Mussolini myself, surely he could have done more to get his country ready for war. He needed a good propaganda minister for starters and he also had a lot of defeatists and anti- German ministers around him. His foriegn minister (I think it was Count Ciano) hated Hitler.

it was generally becasue italy was divided for so damn long. it caused hell for military organization and discipline.

Originally posted by Adler17
The Italian armed forces in ww2 were mostly, diplomatically said, not capable to fight against even smaller forces. Ethiopia and Greece and even Africa are good examples. In Germany we have some jokes about the Italians in WW2. They might be partly unfair, but in general they are not so far away from reality. So actions against Italians in WW2 are difficult to rate.

Adler

Hmmm.....

Generally correct in terms of armies, but unfair to the soldiers of some units. I think the biggest problems the italians faced were poor equipment and atrocious leadership/planning. Many of their troops weren't actually that bad such as the Besgaleri (sp?) and their artillery. Their equipment though was awful, planes and tanks that were incapable of prolonged desert warfare when it began, and it took almost to the end of the war to produce decent versions of either. The officers were awful and cared more for their political positions than they did for their men, with very few professionals. Add that to the lack of motivation Mussolini gave his people for the war and in reality he was on a loosing streak from the start.

Italy had probably the best equipped navy in the Med (i.e., newest, biggest battleships), but they didn't know how to use them properly, and consequently were ineffectual -- another point towards bad leadership.

On a lighter note, I think that the Italian armies were the best armies in the war -- for the Allies. If Barbarossa hadn't been postponed a couple of months, things could have turned out pretty differently. A negotiated peace between Britain, the U.S., and Germany, w/ a quasi-client French state, resulting in a different Cold War: SSDD....

I dont think Zhukov was great. He made major blunders on the drive to Berlin against Heinrici and Stalingrad was more because of Hitler's stupidity then Zhukov's strategy.

Anyway, I voted for Manstein. He saved Germany after Stalingrad in '42-'43 (temporarily at least) and I think he had a major role in saving Germany after Moscow in '41.

it was rokkosovsski at stalingrad who did some real stuff.

Italy's officer class were generally peasants instead of the wealthy. This lack of respect of officers and general attitudes amde the italian army totally ineffective.

Originally posted by privatehudson
As for morale, that depends, Rommel was good at morale, but wasn't constantly leading from the front. On the other hand he did tend to eat and live like his men did and work his backside off. I agree the best general might not be the one who wins all the time, but he won't always also be the one who gets the most combat wounds ;)

Rommel did lead from the front, in france he manually build bridges beside his men neck deep water under fire. Just making
a point about moralle and generals, Generals like "Ike" would generate zero moralle runnning things from SHAEF.

Also trying to make a point about tactics vs stategic planning
Patton and Rommel were great tactically, but they sucked
stategically (logicistics).

Seems a "great" general has to pass these tests too.

In logistics terms, who was good? Bradley? Rundstedt?

Originally posted by Sarevok
In logistics terms, who was good? Bradley? Rundstedt?

Montgomery, That is a large part of the reason he commanded the
D-Day invasion, logistics were so important that even the Americans accepted him until the Battle/supply situation settled
down enough that ike could handle it.

Also Kesselring. Very good strategically. He basically told Rommel you are wasting your time unless you can somehow take Malta. He was right of course.

One thing to note also is that many of the German generals consider Rommel kind of a joke. Yes its true this is paritally jealousy of all the attention he gets because he fought in the west, but I also think its partially true. Rommel panicked big time in France 1940 when the British made a small counter-attack at Stonne. Also he wasn't very good strategically. However one thing you can't fault him for is not being at the front. He was probably at the front too much.

My choice would have to be Guderian. He was an excellent at the theoretical, tactical, strategic, and logistical level. Manstein was excellent too of course. The Russian generals don't get as much credit as they should other than Zhukov, who perhaps get a bit too much (especially for Stalingrad, wasn't really his idea, he was busy beating his head against the wall in the Central Front). Katukov, Rybalko, Konev, Rokkosovisky were all very good. As you can tell im biased to the Easter Front, Ill admit that.

Originally posted by pstanhag

One thing to note also is that many of the German generals consider Rommel kind of a joke. Yes its true this is paritally jealousy of all the attention he gets because he fought in the west, but I also think its partially true. Rommel panicked big time in France 1940 when the British made a small counter-attack at Stonne.

I heard a story about Rommel in France and it was about being counter attacked by the British too. In the story I heard though he told his Flak gunners to level their guns to pick off enemy tanks. The first time the '88 was used in an anti- tank role.

Funny that the two by far better military commanders of WW2 - Von Mannstein and Guderian - are far behind.

Rommel was very good, but not even close to the other two.

Patton was decent, but the Germans outclassed him by far. Zhukov was extremely good, but he had such huge advantages that one can't really assess his true value easily.

Monty was a joke and Ike a mere politician - never a commander. Bradley-the-logistics-master is an interesting choice, as is Kesserling.

alot are interesting. Yamash*ta in singapore and the phillipines, Rokkosovsky at Stalingrad, Rundstedt at Arnhem. They are all decent choices.

Originally posted by Ad Hominem
Ike a mere politician - never a commander.

Why is that a problem? Eisenhower's job as supreme commander of an Allied force was to handle the political and grand-strategy side of the Allies operations, and he perfomed briliantly in this role.

As Hitler and Churchill both demonstrated, people in positions beyond the level of Army Group Commander are much too out of touch to actually exercise direct tactical command. Eisenhower was smart enough to recognise this, and allowed his subordinates to carry out the agreed plans as they best saw fit. As such, Eisenhower deserves a lot of the credit for the Allies remarkable progress in 1944-45.

indeed.

Originally posted by Ad Hominem

Monty was a joke and Ike a mere politician - never a commander.

Hey! I think thats taking things a bit far. Monty was no joke! He gave Britain victories in the field when nothing else was going well for them. He saved the Suez canal. I do think though that Goodwood and Market Garden were both failures.
And before you go on about 'the Commonwealth outnumbered the Axis' and blah blah blah just look at who his opposite number was for most of the time. The man who most people think is the best general of WW2.

monty was only good for el alamein, he is VERY ovverated.

Did Montgomery not have a hand in planning D-day? Should he not get at least some credit for that?

he was temporary commander of ground forces.

I thought he had a greater hand in the planning though? :confused:

not really.

Even so, he's not THAT overrated, after all, he may have failed to break out of Normandy ahead of Patton or Bradley, but he was facing 3 times the number of tanks the american forces were, plus the whole point of that campaign was that he was to pin the Germans in place whilst the Americans broke out and surrounded them, you can't fault him for doing the role he was intended for. Naturally his attempts to break out were bad, but it's hardly fair to judge him in comparison to the US commanders when he faced so much more problems than they.

Arnhem you can fault him for, he should have stopped that before it even started and recognised that the plan was madness. But overall, whilst I would not say he's the greatest commander, he did have considerable ability, to say he's overated is unfair to the situations he faced. Since I don't think many consider him the greatest general ever, and most simply rate him as "good" that is hardly overating him.

As for Normandy landings, at least he had control over the British beaches, which if they did not complete his over-confident objectives, at least they had more sucess than the American beaches alongside them. Planning or not, the British and Canadian beaches were secured quicker than Omaha for example.

you cant compare the british and canadian beaches to Omaha.

Originally posted by Sarevok
you cant compare the british and canadian beaches to Omaha.

the problem at omaha is they landed at the wrong place

the problem was that the germans were on 100 ft bluffs and had an unobstructed view of the beach. The first company that went ashore lost 96% of its men without even firing a shot...

you cant compare the british and canadian beaches to Omaha

Why not? you criticise Montgomery's performance later in Normandy without commenting on the fact that the British faced 3 times the number of tanks the Americans did...

Terrain wise, no you can't, but also the British had learnt from their previous landings and used to great effect the "funnies" tanks that they developed for amphibious assaults. Using those kind of vehicles saved time and lives on the British beaches, had they been used at Omaha, it could have been easier than the infantry style engineer teams they tried to use. The British also adopted on Gold beach the principle of running their DD tanks right up to the beachead rather than launching them in heavy seas like at Omaha and Juno, something that proved deadly effective.

On the terrain though, some of the British beaches were hardly walkovers either. Gold for one had a fortified town on the beach. Whilst it's partly down to the terrain that caused such problems, some of them would have been lessened had they adopted better strategies. You can hardly fault the British for selecting the right strategies and beaches for their landings now can you? Perhaps that says something of their ability...

Paw-Paw:

I thought it was Utah they missed the correct beach on?

still, monty wasnt very good.

Base on Arnhem? Please, forward some more reasons that don't include him being in a worse military position than those who did better than him and you might have a point, but in my book he did alright. He was cautious and arrogant, not to mention a glory hunter, but you go too far, he certainly was not as bad as you make out.

He sucked in sicily, he wasnt very good at normandy, and he bombed arnhem. not to mention gettling lots of men shot up trying to cross the rhine.

Originally posted by Sarevok
He sucked in sicily, he wasnt very good at normandy, and he bombed arnhem. not to mention gettling lots of men shot up trying to cross the rhine.

Oops, you seem to have missed the following bit:

forward some more reasons that don't include him being in a worse military position than those who did better than him

Which is suprising considering he was facing considerably more tanks than the Americans in Normandy as I mentioned, so it's not like that battle was fought on equal terms is it? Arnhem I will give you, fair enough, he should not have lauinched such an attack, neither though should Ike have ever considered that the Northern flank was even remotely suitable for such a move. Plus he was hindered by Ike not releasing control of transport priorities leading up to the campaign, delaying the advances of the corps on the flank of XXX corps and causing inummerable problems.

Scilly is hardly fair either, given that the best formation (1st airborne) on the island faced the British and the terrain there was severely restrictive. Even so he was only just beaten to Messina by Patton. The rhine crossings I know little about, but at least they suceeded...

Hell I'm not calling him the best commander in the war, but instead of just saying "he did badly" you might take a little time to consider just why he did badly, or usually not as well as his fellow officers rather than badly. Generals should be judged on how they did given the situation, not how they did compared to people in better situations.

i didnt say he did badly, I said he was totally overrated.

Funny, your post above that one seems to indicate otherwise...

Besides, overated needs some basis for what he's rated as, since most people here don't consider him much more than capable, I'd say he's rated quite fairly.

i say he gets way more attention than he deserves.

Sarevok is right. Most of the fame Monty got is for El Alamain. And there he lost the battle nearly. Only when the German lack of surprise got critical, he won. Some other operation he had bigger difficulties but if he was so good he would have won at least one with a glorious victory. But he didn´t. Even though when he planned he was not so good: Arnheim was a disaster. So his fame is unjustified beiing so great. He wasn´t bad but compared with Patton, Guderian, Manstein and Rommel he was playing in a lower league.

Adler

Well put. Thats the point I was trying to make.

Originally posted by Sarevok
you cant compare the british and canadian beaches to Omaha.

As Hudson points out, you most certainly can. Some of the British and Canadian beaches were every bit as well defenced as Omaha, but British tactics proved superior then the tactics employed by the Americans (who had foolishly turned down a British gift of large numbers of the specialised tanks which were to prove so useful). If the Americans had used the methods the British used then taking Omaha would have been a lot easier.

Incidnetly, Montogomery's contribution to the Overlord plans (which he was in charge of for the critical six months before the invasion) and the inital phases of the battle's execution was imense and highly positive. To criticise his contribution here is to display ignorance.

Even though when he planned he was not so good: Arnheim was a disaster.

Even though it came extreamly close to working? If the British 1st Airborne had had slightly better luck and XXX corps had displayed a little more aggression, Market-Garden would have ended in a great victory. After the war all the major players in the battle still considered the risk that was taken in lauching the attack as being worthwhile. I tend to agree.

Originally posted by Case

Even though it came extreamly close to working? If the British 1st Airborne had had slightly better luck and XXX corps had displayed a little more aggression, Market-Garden would have ended in a great victory. After the war all the major players in the battle still considered the risk that was taken in lauching the attack as being worthwhile. I tend to agree.

If, if, if. Market Garden was Monty's baby and because of that he has to wear the consequences of it's failure. that part of Holland wasn't very good tank country due to the low water table.
There was a bit of bad luck involved though I do admit. Who would have thought the boys from the Frundsberg and Hohenstauffen SS divisions would be waiting for them? I think Monty would have proceeded anyway even if he did have that information.

Originally posted by Adler17
He wasn´t bad but compared with Patton, Guderian, Manstein and Rommel he was playing in a lower league.

Adler

No, He was playing Hardball against the best the Reich could offer, Patton never faced a dug in enemy, that hadn't been
pre-beaten by the British, guess if you put Monty down enough you can make old "Blood & Guts" look good with enough PR.

Well said ozz, though I'm not sure of whether that comment about never facing dug in enemies is right, the sentiment is there. Thank you case for pointing the info on D-day out, in this case, if we are counting pluses, I'd say the sucess of an operation as vital as D-day is a pretty big mark in Monty's favour.

Arnhem I still have a bugbear about, if I had been Ike I would have handed Patton the role, not because I consider Patton better than monty, I don't, but Patton faced better terrain in some ways and was more suited to a quickly organised offensive relying on brute strength of character than Monty was. Mongomery's type of battle was Alamein, planned and meticulous, Arnhem was planned to fast and it showed. Add that to RAF intransigence, Ike's refusal to shift transport and supplies to Montgomery properly, the terrible terrain and the woefull bad luck throughout the campaign, and it is a compliment to ALL those involved that it came so close to suceeding.

I still would have given the job to Patton though. :p

Personally I rate Patton and Montgomery on the same level for two reasons. Firstly, at first glance Patton seems beter, he achieved more. Further glances show that he faced better situations than Montgomery did, so this is a moot point. I rate them after that as equal mainly because they had two very different, often very effective styles. Montgomery was a cautious planner, who you could rely on more often than not when he had time to think things through. Patton was a gambler, a risk taker, someone you could ask to launch offensives almost at the drop of a hat and expect at least some degree of sucess by blind luck and force of will.

So whilst you might say he was overrated for Arnhem and other battles, he certainly was the right man available at the time for both Alamein and Normandy. Different generals have different abilities, and suit different situations, I don't think Patton would have done as well at either Alamein or Normandy, they weren't his style. Does that make him a bad general, or is it more a case of different style again?

Monty was the type for brutal attrition battles, but when the enemy was on the run, patton was the guy to call.

Right after the British had done 90% of the hard work, only for Patton to take 100% of the glory :p

Monty does at least though deserve more credit than being labelled an attritional general IMO

I dont like saying he was the great victor of el alamein though because he had double the forces Rommel had and far more supplies and oil.

That was his way though, certainty of victory and planning that ensured sucess in the long run rather than rash and costly offensives that might temporarily suceed, but migh also fail later. It wasn't a marvelous victory, but neither was Patton's in Normandy or Scilly to be frank.

Patton did really good in france... until he ran out of gas.

Yes, BUT after the British and commenwealth forces had drawn against themselves 3 times the number of tanks Patton faced, so it's hardly suprising that Patton did well really is it? The race across France was no shock either, there was next to nothing left of the Wermacht in the west after Falaise, and to be frank Patton hardly outpaced Montgomery in the advance either.

because he had to halt because he ran out of gas...

:rolleyes: So did Montgomery suffer from lack of fuel you know, and he had to detail much of his canadian troops to guard the channel ports

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Case
[B]

As Hudson points out, you most certainly can. Some of the British and Canadian beaches were every bit as well defenced as Omaha, but British tactics proved superior then the tactics employed by the Americans (who had foolishly turned down a British gift of large numbers of the specialised tanks which were to prove so useful). If the Americans had used the methods the British used then taking Omaha would have been a lot easier.

____________________________________________

Just to clarify about the actual landings, the British and Canadian beaches were certainly not as well defended as Omaha.

Omaha - The second beach from the right, Omaha, was also the largest. Over 6 miles in length. 100-foot cliffs over looked the entire beach, and the latter third of the beach had a 10-foot seawall. The Germans had built up some tough defenses. The beach was heavily mined, and the Germans had built 5 strong holds called Widerstandsnester ("resistance nests"). The battle itself went entirely wrong for the allied forces, 27 of the 29 amphibious support tanks sank in the rough waters of the channel. The allies lost more then 2400 soldiers in taking Omaha beach, but by the end of the day, they had managed to land more then 34,000 troops.

Utah - The farthest beach to the right, Utah, had light defenses compared to that of Omaha beach. Consisting of some automatic weapons, and a small number of inland artillery batteries. Utah was much easier to take then was Omaha, and the allies only lost 300 men, 1/8 of the troops lost taking Omaha. The landing went wrong again, as the troops landed almost 2000 yards off target. But luckily, they ended up in a less defended area.


Gold - Gold beach was the middle beach, little infantry resistance and no German armor made this assault very effective. The British lost around 400 men, but by the end of the day, managed to land more then 25,000 men.

Sword - Located on the left of the other beaches, was Sword beach. It also had light defenses, mainly consisting of far off artillery. The Germans had machine gun nests hidden in the dunes, along with mines. The British lost around 700 men, but managed to land 29,000 by the end of the day.

Juno - Juno was the second beach from the left. The main thing the landing troops had to worry about was not the German troops, but the offshore reefs and shoals. The Landing craft were running late, so most of the water defense was already at least partially submerged. The ships paid a heavy price for being late, with over 30% of the landing craft being destroyed. 1200 out of the 21,400 troops that landed perished in taking Juno beach.

Originally posted by privatehudson
Arnhem I still have a bugbear about, if I had been Ike I would have handed Patton the role, not because I consider Patton better than monty, I don't, but Patton faced better terrain in some ways

Not so. The whole point of Market-Garden was that if the Allies could blitz through Holland, they would both be in the vital Rhur industrial area and on the best and shortest road to Berlin. Add in the possibility of opening Germany's North Sea ports for supplies, and you have the reason why a single thrust along Patton's axis doesn't seem to have been seriously considered.

Wether Patton may have been a better choice to command Market-Garden is an interesting sugestion, but any such appointment would have been politically impossible due to the axis of advance clearly lieing within the British sector of the front. Anyway, Montgomery only exercised very limited tactical control over the battle - the battle was handled by the commander of the 2nd British Army and the various British and American corps commanders. As Army Group commander, Montgomery's job didn't involve the direct tactical command of units.

Those who criticise Montomery as an 'attritional' general while still praising Patton really need to look at Patton's campaigns in eastern France in late 1944. The fighting in this area was attritional warfare at it's most ruthless and incompetant, and Patton's performance left an awful lot to be desired. It's no wonder that this important part of the war was hardly covered in the single-dimensioned movie.

Anyway, Patton can't really be compared to Montgomery during the 1944-45 campaign for the simple reason that they had very different jobs: Montgomery was an Army Group Commander and Patton 'only' commanded an Army. Montgomery's principle American counterpart was General Bradley, whose performance was also generally good, ableit with some extreamly serious blunders (ie, the failure to close the Falaise Pocket and the failure to anticipate the German December counter-offencive).

Not so. The whole point of Market-Garden was that if the Allies could blitz through Holland, they would both be in the vital Rhur industrial area and on the best and shortest road to Berlin. Add in the possibility of opening Germany's North Sea ports for supplies, and you have the reason why a single thrust along Patton's axis doesn't seem to have been seriously considered.

But that has to balanced against the atrocious terrain that lead through the Market Garden route and Monty's unsuitable nature for such a role to me. You add an interesting point that I hadn't thought much about previously though, so when I write an article on the campaign, I'll keep that in mind :)

And I agree, Patton couldn't have commanded the offensive in Holland, I merely suggested that he should have been given command of a similar one in his own region. I also agree that M-G was out of Montgomery's direct control, I haven't criticised him personally for the tactical handling. I do though think that the plan that they used really needed a good overhaul to correct some glaring errors at the bare minimum, if not rejected the plan overall for it's strategic problems. It was his role partly to decide overall strategy, and some of the strategic decisions were so blatantly going to cause severe tactical problems that it should have shouted NO!!!!!!!!! :D

Btw case, do you happen to know which commander the battles in Hurtgen forest fell under? I dunno, and was wondering if either Patton, Bradley or another held responsibility for that waste of time and lives. On Bradley, I agree, one of his biggest blunders was not to finish the closing of Falaise, something that would have ensared the best part of the entire Wermacht in the West.

that was because bradley didnt let patton close the gap because monty was north of him. Patton naturally was pretty pissed off.

I'd appreciate you clarifying that somewhat, what you posted there isn't very clear as to why Montgomery being there prevented bradley from doing his Job....

So what exactly is an army group commander?

a commander of army groups, or a combined group of armies. id say... 4 armies.

Originally posted by privatehudson
But that has to balanced against the atrocious terrain that lead through the Market Garden route

True. However, if the Allies had been able to achieve the objectives of the Market-Garden plan then they would have blitzed through that terrain and would be on the border of the North German plain, which is fantastic tank country. Patton's axis would have been more mountainous and forrested.

I do though think that the plan that they used really needed a good overhaul to correct some glaring errors at the bare minimum, if not rejected the plan overall for it's strategic problems. It was his role partly to decide overall strategy, and some of the strategic decisions were so blatantly going to cause severe tactical problems that it should have shouted NO!!!!!!!!! :D

True. The principle fault with Market-Garden was for it to work, almost everything had to go right. As a result, when one of the 'modules' failed at Arhnem, the plan ended in defeat. Things would have been much worse though if one of the American drops had been defeated - the entire plan required XXX corps to blast through and cross all the major rivers on captured bridges.

Btw case, do you happen to know which commander the battles in Hurtgen forest fell under?[/B]

Um, Bradley was the Army-Group commander, and I can't remember the name of the Army commander who was in command there. The key problems at Hurtgen forrest appear to have occured at every level in the chain of command, from Army Group down to regimental level - not only was the forrest not worth it's price, but the tactics which were used to take it were poorly selected.

Originally posted by Sarevok
that was because bradley didnt let patton close the gap because monty was north of him. Patton naturally was pretty pissed off.

:confused: Actually, Montgomery's 21st Army group furfilled it's part of the plan, and reached it's final objectives (which were, of course, to the north of 12th Army group - Falaise was an encirclement battle ;) ) Bradley however chose not to furfil the 12th Army Group's objective by closing the gap due to a belief that doing so would be too difficult. As a result, while the Germans lost most of their equipment, a hell of a lot of well trained soldiers escaped from then encirclement and went on to form the backbone of the divisions which stoped the Allied advance on the German border. It was a very serious blunder which probably added several months to the war.

Originally posted by civilleader
So what exactly is an army group commander?

As the name sugests, an Army Group commander plans and co-ordinates the activities of two or more Armies with similar missions (an 'Army' being a force of two or more corps). They generally concern themselves with grand strategy and high-level logistical planning and shouldn't ever directly issue orders to combat units - they delegate this to their Army commanders. In contrast, Army commanders are responsible for the tactical handling and supply of units under their command (again, with control often being delegated down to Corps level). The only time Patton and Montgomery had the same job was during the Scilian campaign - at all other times, Montgomery was operating one level ahead of Patton.

During the campaign in Western Europe, the Allies had 3 Army groups: from north to south they were 21st Army group under General Montgomery, which consisted of a 'Canadian' Army (which was actually a mix of Canadian, British and minor allied units), a British Army and an American Army, 12th Army group under General Bradley which consisted of 3 American Armies (including Patton's 3rd Army) and 6th Army group under General Patch which consisted of an American Army and a French Army (I *think* that another French Army was added in 1945).

There was also 15th Army Group in Italy which commanded the 'American' 5th Army (which was a mix of American, South African and South American units) and the 'British' 8th Army (which was a mix of British and British Commonwealth units). Army Group HQs were formed in the Pacific in the second half of 1945, but the war ended before these HQs actually commanded any units in battle.

there was also the army groups that were made by the Germans in russia (army group North, AG center, AG south)

Originally posted by Sarevok
there was also the army groups that were made by the Germans in russia (army group North, AG center, AG south)

The Germans formed about a zillion different Army Groups during the war. However, by 1944 the desperatly undersrtrenght nature of the German Army meant that few of these Army Groups could actually field and Army's worth of forces. This was reflected by the increasingly limited amounts of territory each Army Group was responcible for.

Case, I would have replied, but my conclusions are going to be in an article on the battle, so sooner or later I'll comment there :)

which battle?

Arnhem, well to be precise the whole campaign rather than just Arnhem

cool, cant wqit :)

You'll have to I'm afraid, I've not even started on the fighting part yet and it is like 5 pages long on word :eek:

ouch, well... so be it.

Should I condense it? :p

no, the more the better.