Most talented allied commander in WWII

[LightSpectra]

Yes it won the day, that doesnt mean they were skilled. Thats not tactics or strategy. Thats just careless force.

I was being sarcastic. You know literally nothing about the two Soviet offenses I just mentioned if you think that's what those battles amounted to.

Yes but Patton himself was not a logistical man. Im not saying generals did too much without their staffs. They were a big part. But Patton had nothing to do with that logistical feat, and its stupid to give him credit for it. It was completely due to his staff.

My first question is then, alright, why exactly do you consider him to be a good tactician (on par with Rommel no less) if he was just the figurehead for his brilliant staff?

Secondly, you're wrong. Patton was a highly educated and intelligent man that played a large part in the Third Army's operations. Even if that weren't the case, the job of the head commander is to co-ordinate and communicate with his staff, and compromise amongst disagreements; and nobody's memoirs (especially not his Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Hobart R. Gay) ever indicated that Patton wasn't an especially effective commander in this regard.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

All the soviet egnerals did was constantly throw men and tanks against the enemy in hopeless offensives, over and over no matter how much of a chance they had.

Using Rzhyev as a summary of the whole Eastern War is like using Kasserine Pass as a summary of the North African War.

Even when they didnt do that, they either mis interpreted the enemy's moves and put their reserves in the worng place (like zhukov did when citadel was going off),

Funny that you should say this, since most modern strategists and generals would agree that the Soviet execution of Kursk was the most perfectly planned and executed military operation in history.

The reserves in question, are you talking about the seven armies at Voronezh? They were put there specifically to be out of range of German recon, far enough away to give other Soviet units room to maneuver, and still close enough to carry the counter-offensive when the German attack stalled out. The Soviets had full intelligence of the German plan beforehand, both from German move-broadcasting and from actual espionage data. Their preparations and actions reflect this wonderfully. Why else would they have driven towards Orel before von Kluge had barely punctured the Kursk salient?

or they still lost to the germans. The only reason the soviets drove the germans back from 43 on was beause the germans lacked the tanks (and the fuel for the remaining tanks in some places) to use them in their usual defensive role of counterattacking any breakthroughs.

Which is a perfectly legitimate and respectable way to win.

 

[privatehudson]

But then bradley is not to blame. That would be the fault of hodge, not bradley, as bradley gave alot of autonomy to his commanders when he commanded his army group. He only gave them the objectives, and maybe gave suggestions, but m ost of the time he didnt interfere with their choices unless needed. Courtney Hodges was teh commander of the battle, and therefore he is to blame, although i dont see the problem. It was a staging area for the battle of the bulge. A very important position in my opinion for that reason alone. And it wasnt over until febuary, just so you know. Checked online.

That's rather like absolving Montgomery of responsibility for Market Garden and blaming Horrocks and Browning for it instead. If Bradley didn't care to find out why 8 infantry and 2 armoured divisions were being chewed up and spat out in an area the GIs nicknamed "The Death Factory", why company commanders refused orders to attack, division commanders were being fired or why there was little or no progress for long periods then I'm not quite sure what he would have considered worthy of his interference.

Your remark about it being a staging area for the Bulge is interesting when you consider that at one point or another 120,000 men were committed to the battle (admitedly some during the February phase), men that it could be argued would have gone some way to stiffening the line in the Bulge prior to the offensive and lessening the impact of it. Instead they were committed to an operation with vague objectives in poor terrain against an enemy that could and should have been bypassed.

I didn't consider the February period since the battle came to an effective halt for the period of the Battle of the Bulge with American forces switching to the defensive and then resuming the offensive after the Bulge ended. I consider it more of a separate battle, or at best a separate phase. It certainly shouldn't be considered as some sort of sub-battle of the Bulge campaign since it began three months earlier than the Bulge and was in effect put on hold during the whole time that campaign took place.

I'd reccomend reading Whiting's book on the battle or watching the film When Trumpets Fade, they both give a good impression of the hellish nature of the battle.

 

[bombshoo]

I've always liked Slim. He was unpretentious, down to earth and he turned what should have been an absolute nightmare for the British (not that the situation wasn't pretty desperate) into a victory.

 

[GoodGame]

Out of interest of reading more about Patton, I stumbled across this article.
http://www.pattonhq.com/textfiles/morethan.html

It claims Bradley actually committed intellectual theft of Patton's plan for Operation Cobra.

In the past, it was the accepted belief that George S. Patton, Jr. was qualified to be and effective only as a field commander; that he was unsuited for higher command or for strategic planning. With the passing of time, those incorrect assumptions are being corrected. Patton continues to emerge as the superior leader of the European Theater in World War II. His attitude, opinions, philosophy, and prophesies prove to be more accurate and correct than any of his wartime contemporaries. Had General Patton been listened to, many of the problems faced by the West during the Cold War would not have existed.

...

Third Army staff never doubted that Bradley was making good in France by expropriating their boss's ideas. Patton's aide, Colonel Charles Codman, wrote to his wife, "As of August 1st, General Bradley has adopted practically all of General Patton's plans."

Patton's August 14, 1944 diary entry, regarding the St. Lo breakthrough, reads, "It is really a great plan, wholly my own, and I made Bradley think that he thought of it." Patton's eventual disgust with higher command's Pecksniffian penchant, its unctuous hypocrisy, caused him to stop telling any of his plans to Bradley.

So was Patton an egotist, or was he thefted from? If he was fully thefted from it kind of makes him the thread winner, no?


semi-pointless aside:
Also, it seems Patton's diary is somewhat full of controversy, so some internet wingnuts allude that he was murdered by a pro-semitic, pro-communist conspiracy, so it may be some peoples have an agenda on how Patton is presented.



......

That's rather like absolving Montgomery of responsibility for Market Garden and blaming Horrocks and Browning for it instead. If Bradley didn't care to find out why 8 infantry and 2 armoured divisions were being chewed up and spat out in an area the GIs nicknamed "The Death Factory", why company commanders refused orders to attack, division commanders were being fired or why there was little or no progress for long periods then I'm not quite sure what he would have considered worthy of his interference.

I have to largely agree with this. An old military line is that you can delegate authority, but you can't delegate responsibility.

 

[bestrfcplayer]

Patton or Ike.

 

[Tee Kay]

Not sure if Mao could be included, but from what I understand, due to his guerrilla tactics, his corner of China held, and diverted critical troops from the other fronts to deal with him.

Granted, the National Revolutionary Army did the vast majority of the fighting. Mao generally avoided engagement with the Japanese (direct or guerilla) to spend time recruiting in the countryside, not so much against the Japanese as against the eventual war with Chiang Kai-shek.

I said ALLIED. Communist china was never really part of the allies.

Anyway Mao wasnt even a real general. He was a politician. He knew nothing about warfare. That was his generals.

Um... yeah he was.

And China was part of the Allies. At the time, all of China including Mao's little commune in Yan'an was part of a United Front government led by Chiang Kai-shek, so by extension Communist China was part of the Allied Forces.

Yes it won the day, that doesnt mean they were skilled. Thats not tactics or strategy. Thats just careless force.

lolwut?

 

[Glassfan]

Max Hastings, asked who he thought was the best general of WW II said, "Unquestionably Marshal Zhukov, and thank God we (USA & UK) had none like him."

 

[Cull]

Granted, the National Revolutionary Army did the vast majority of the fighting. Mao generally avoided engagement with the Japanese (direct or guerilla) to spend time recruiting in the countryside, not so much against the Japanese as against the eventual war with Chiang Kai-shek.

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I thought Chiang Kai-shek used a don't tickle the Japanese strategy, and avoided direct combat as well?

 

[Tee Kay]

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I thought Chiang Kai-shek used a don't tickle the Japanese strategy, and avoided direct combat as well?

Chiang Kai-shek did seek to avoid direct engagements for the same reasons Mao did - because they'd probably lose, and because they want to conserve their strength for the coming civil war. However, they didn't have much choice in the matter since they bore the brunt of the Japanese offensives. In any case the NRA was a very different kind of army from the proto-PLA, being a much larger, more conventional one. The Communists had less to worry about since the NRA was so much more important then that the Japanese concentrate their efforts on the NRA forces.

 

[rollo1066]

Almost for sure it's Zhukov (and I'm an American).

 

[Azale]

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I thought Chiang Kai-shek used a don't tickle the Japanese strategy, and avoided direct combat as well?

He had the One Hundred Divisions (?) Offensive, which the Communists were a part of. It ended in disaster and convinced Mao that fighting the Japanese head on was a losing proposition.

 

[e350tb]

I'd say Slim, O'Connor, Alexander, Patton and (I'm going to be stoned for this) Montgomery. On the latter, I'm not going to absolve him for Market Garden, but you have to remember that he was the commander of ground forces in Normandy, and he did a pretty good job of that.

Honourable mention to Nimitz, but he's an admiral. If we're counting the Soviets, then Zhukov wins.

 

[Tee Kay]

No love for Rokossowski?

 

[arya126]

Please explain to me how zhukov is the best allied general. I dont see any particular skill in him.

Also montgomery WAS NOT the overall ground commander during normandy. He commanded the 21st army group, and in the chain of command was equal to Omar Bradley. Eisenhower was the overall theater commander, and therefore overall ground commander as well. Montgomery also lost many chances to destroy Rommel's army in north africa, and instead wanted to wait for insane logistical buildups before launching any attack, which led to the axis being able to hold out for a bit in tunisia.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

No love for Rokossowski?

Certainly more deserving than Zhukov. Rokossovsky had real talent, and he was one of the few who both survived the Purges (though just barely) and still dared to stand up to Stalin.

I found this on wiki:

In a famous incident during the planning in 1944 of Operation Bagration, Rokossovsky conflicted with Stalin who demanded in accordance with Soviet war practice a single break-through of the German frontline. Rokossovsky held firm in his argument for two break-throughs. Stalin ordered Rokossovsky to "go and think it over" three times, but every time he returned and gave the same answer "Two break-throughs, Comrade Stalin, two break-throughs." After the third time Stalin remained silent, but walked over to Rokossovsky and put a hand on his shoulder. A tense moment followed as the whole room waited for Stalin to rip the epaulette from Rokossovsky's shoulder; instead, Stalin said "Your confidence speaks for your sound judgement," and ordered the attack to go forward according to Rokossovsky's plan. The battle was successful, and Rokossovsky's reputation was assured.

 

[LightSpectra]

Montgomery was an awful commander. Put a victory in front of him and he'll take the credit for it, no matter his involvement.

 

[negZero]

Bradley over Patton, umm you do realize that Bradley was deputy to Patton while in II Corps and Ike still put Patton back in command over Bradley's protests after he was relieved in Sicily for slapping incident (am getting this from the movie so i don't if its true or not). My top 3 allied generals (cause its just to hard to pick one) would be.

1)Patton: when your feared by the other side and one of your allies doesn't want to face you cause of him you know you got something
2)Zhukov: I don't know much about him but Cheezy has spoken highly of him and take his word on it
3)Auchinleck; A little cocky and spy kept him from stopping Nazis. Am bias on this one since I just read piece on Fall of Norway about how the Germans may have had sexy ballerina spy that got the hold of his plans. What does this have do with anything? I don't know, its sexy ballerina spy just sit back let that sink in.

 

[LightSpectra]

Bradley over Patton, umm you do realize that Bradley was deputy to Patton while in II Corps and Ike still put Patton back in command over Bradley's protests after he was relieved in Sicily for slapping incident (am getting this from the movie so i don't if its true or not). My top 3 allied generals (cause its just to hard to pick one) would be.

That doesn't necessarily mean Patton's the superior commander. Almost every great general in history was at one point a subordinate to somebody else; it's like saying Dugommier should be ranked higher than Napoleon, or Philip II higher than Alexander.

2)Zhukov: I don't know much about him but Cheezy has spoken highly of him and take his word on it

I seem to remember Cheezy calling him an idiot and a terrible general. In fact, two posts before your own, he said that Rokossovsky is "[c]ertainly more deserving than Zhukov."

I found this on Wikipedia, and although it's only pertaining to American commanders, I suppose it may be of interest:

Near the end of the war (February 1945), Eisenhower ranked the capabilities of U.S. generals in Europe. Omar Bradley and Carl Spaatz he rated as the best. Walter Bedell Smith was ranked number 3, and Patton number 4, followed by Mark Clark, and Lucian Truscott.

Bradley himself had been asked by Eisenhower to rank all the generals in December 1945, and he ranked them as follows: Bedell Smith #1, Spaatz #2, Courtney Hodges #3, Elwood Quesada #4, Truscott #5, and Patton #6 (others were also ranked).

Source

 

[negZero]

That doesn't necessarily mean Patton's the superior commander. Almost every great general in history was at one point a subordinate to somebody else; it's like saying Dugommier should be ranked higher than Napoleon, or Philip II higher than Alexander.

But how many of those were passed over and put into second command?

I seem to remember Cheezy calling him an idiot and a terrible general. In fact, two posts before your own, he said that Rokossovsky is "[c]ertainly more deserving than Zhukov."

I know it was some Russian general he or someone else has spoken highly of before and am to lazy, sick and tired to look it up.

Also on the wiki you got to remember that Patton caused a ton of headaches back home, and logistics, stuff that Ike would consided in rankings.