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I vaguely recall playing a not-very-good Russo-Japanese War scenario a long time ago. ...not that that's of much help! It would be a fairly easy war to make a good scenario out of - the number of units involved was fairly small for much of the war, and it revolved around a small number of major...

I agree: the worst military commander in history was probably the leader of a tribe or kingdom who inherited the job and got his force totally wiped out through sheer stupidity. Professional soldiers who rise through the ranks of militaries have to be at least vaugely successul to get promoted...

...along with a lot of other Allied units. For instance, following the German surrender a large proportion of the British Special Air Service was used to secure southern Norway.

Given that a large number of Germans and Japanese were successfully prosecuted in military and civilian courts for murdering hostages in several countries after the war, you really need to provide a very good source for the claim that this behavior was legal. Were all these court cases wrong?

Frankly, I don't know. I don't understand why the bulk of the German Army fought fairly ethusiastically for what was clearly such a bad cause. I don't see anything admirable in it though.

I don't agree. The nature of the Nazi regime was obvious by 1939, with all Germans having experianced repression while the Nazis blantantly plundered the state for their own gain. Richard Evans' excellent recent books on the Nazis rise to power and the period leading up to the invasion of Poland...

Really? When did the Allied leadership issue orders that Axis special forces were to be executed? Seeing as the Axis didn't even have much in the way of special forces this doesn't seem at all likely. The only time I know of the Allies deliberetly killing captured Axis special forces was...

No it's not - a policy of shooting POWs is a very serious war crime and a black mark on the German Army's reputation. I believe that a number of Germans were hanged after the war for this (for example, the British SAS formed a number of specialised investigative parties which searched Germany...

I'd add that the German Army seems to have gone along with Hitler's order to shoot any uniformed Allied commandos who were taken prisoner. The German Army also basically ran Germany during the later years of WW1.

The German soldiers of WW2 lived through the 1920s and/or 1930s, so they were aware of the circumstances in which the Nazis came to power - and probably were from families which didn't support the Nazis - and/or how the Nazis miss-governed Germany.

Yes - the German Army of WW2 was actually unusual for the army of a totalitarian state. For example, many of the Soviet soldiers who surrendered in huge numbers in 1941 and 1942 seem to have done so as they didn't want to fight for the communists (the majority fought stubonly, however)...

But most of the German Army's personnel were conscripts, and not professionals. Given that the Nazis never really achieved majority public support its suprising that ordinary soldiers and officers continued to fight as long as they did - many of the conscripts must have opposed the Nazis and...

Given that the German Army played a critical role in the Nazi Party's rise to power (albeit by standing aside) and enthusiastically planned and waged wars of conquest against all Germany's neigbours I don't think that we need to be at all sensitive about its reputation! - especially given the...

I've never heard of anyone dressing up as a Japanese soldier, despite Japan also winning impressive victories at the start of the war followed by a 'long defeat'. For some reason the Japanese Army's war crimes seem to be regarded as being more important as the German Army's war crimes and the...

The US's basic war aim in the Pacific was to force Japan to give up the territory it had conqured, so the Allies win. However, as has been pointed out above, the US wasn't going to settle for anything less than unconditional surrender by 1945.

Yeah, but they were unable to get that information to him. Nelson was greatly hampered by the RN's lack of frigates for scouting and communications and had to rely on guess work - which eventually proved right and lead to his great victory at the Nile. While Villeneuve was hardly a naval...

According to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horatio_Nelson%2C_1st_Viscount_Nelson Nelson was made a midshipman (eg, a trainee officer) through family connections shortly after joining the navy, so he didn't really serve 'before the mast' and he wasn't without influential friends. However, the RN...

This criticism of Nelson is coming from the same person who likes to argue that the German Army could have still won the war in May 1945 ;)

He didn't need to: he was a theatre commander. His job was to set strategic priorities, and not manage battles. I don't think that he had anything to do with Anzio as he was in England at the time as commander of the Allied forces preparing for the invasion of France.

So you mean that he effectively used the advantages in numbers and firepower his Armies typically enjoyed? (which were, to a large degree, due to his ability to supply his forces and concentrate them at the right point at the right time). No, he was apointed to the supreme command of the...