Best WW2 General

[Sarevok]

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.

 

[Ozz]

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.

 

[Sarevok]

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

 

[Ozz]

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.

 

[pstanhag]

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.

 

[rilnator]

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.

 

[Ad Hominem]

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.

 

[Sarevok]

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

 

[Case]

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.

 

[Sarevok]

indeed.

 

[rilnator]

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.

 

[Sarevok]

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

 

[privatehudson]

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

 

[Sarevok]

he was temporary commander of ground forces.

 

[privatehudson]

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

 

[Sarevok]

not really.

 

[privatehudson]

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.

 

[Sarevok]

you cant compare the british and canadian beaches to Omaha.

 

[pawpaw]

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

 

[Sarevok]

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...