Best WW2 General

[Constantine]

The Canadian was called Crerar

 

[Sarevok]

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

!!! no1 has voted for Zhukov?

 

[Pangur Bán]

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.

 

[Constantine]

Sarevok I was just telling Private Hudson the spelling.

 

[Zardnaar]

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.

 

[capslock]

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.

 

[General Porkins]

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

 

[ss3goku]

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.

 

[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.

 

[privatehudson]

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.

 

[Enemy Ace]

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.

[dance]

 

[privatehudson]

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?

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.

 

[Enemy Ace]

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.

 

[privatehudson]

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

 

[Desmond Hawkins]

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.

 

[Enemy Ace]

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

 

[privatehudson]

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

 

[covok48]

"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.

 

[Case]

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).

 

[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.