Best Generals of ww2 and their role in this game

[vonhavoc]

This one I can agree with. The price paid at Dieppe was much too steep. Yes they learned valuable lessons that helped with DDay. They also failed in some of their tactical objectives like gathering physical intel from the radar installation.

I remember reading somewhere that Dieppe raid was Churhill's way of showing Stalin that it was not possible to open a front in France in the west yet. The requests from soviet side for this are more than reasonable, naturally. But it sure was a brutal way to demonstrate it.

One of the reasons I consider Churchill a bad leader. Not a general per se, but he more than enough demonstrated his military skills in WW1 with the Dardanelles debacle.

 

[Dalwin]

I remember reading somewhere that Dieppe raid was Churhill's way of showing Stalin that it was not possible to open a front in France in the west yet. The requests from soviet side for this are more than reasonable, naturally. But it sure was a brutal way to demonstrate it.

One of the reasons I consider Churchill a bad leader. Not a general per se, but he more than enough demonstrated his military skills in WW1 with the Dardanelles debacle.

Going to have to disagree with you on the Churchill thing. I think he was a brilliant leader and exactly what was needed at the time. He was willing to make the hard calls and not worry about who would be blamed later. It is like Truman's famous sign, "The Buck stops here", or Teddy Roosevelt's quote, "In any moment of decision, the best thing to do is the right thing. Second best is the wrong thing. The worst thing to do is nothing."

Whatever you may think of some of Churchill's decisions, you have to admit that he was decisive. A wishy washy PM in 1940 might have easily translated into more of us speaking German today.

 

[SergeantPunch]

It worked out well for him in the end letting the Russians spill their blood and then waltzing in with the Americans when the time was right to grab the glory. Good leader

 

[vonhavoc]

Going to have to disagree with you on the Churchill thing. I think he was a brilliant leader and exactly what was needed at the time. He was willing to make the hard calls and not worry about who would be blamed later. It is like Truman's famous sign, "The Buck stops here", or Teddy Roosevelt's quote, "In any moment of decision, the best thing to do is the right thing. Second best is the wrong thing. The worst thing to do is nothing."

Whatever you may think of some of Churchill's decisions, you have to admit that he was decisive. A wishy washy PM in 1940 might have easily translated into more of us speaking German today.

There is a difference between being decisive and stubborn in my opinnion. I would put Churchill more in the stubborn section. Although, one must admit lives were cheap in WW1, so why should Dardanelles have been any different.

From the looks of it (not your opinnions or actions in any way, mind you), Churchill seems to have something of a holy status in Britain. Much like Mannerheim in Finland. However he wasn't without his faults and weaknesses, much like any leader of that time. Or even more so, much like anyone of us.

I do concede the point that he probably was the right man to oppose Hitler. However, in a way, if he had not been so absolute in demands for unconditional surrender in times when the war was still undecided, the history might have been less bloody. Having an unconditional surrender as the only option, german army would really have no other way than to fight it out.

What would have come out of this what if -scenario of negotiating a peace, is a completely different story.

 

[Dalwin]

There is a difference between being decisive and stubborn in my opinnion. I would put Churchill more in the stubborn section. Although, one must admit lives were cheap in WW1, so why should Dardanelles have been any different.

From the looks of it (not your opinnions or actions in any way, mind you), Churchill seems to have something of a holy status in Britain. Much like Mannerheim in Finland. However he wasn't without his faults and weaknesses, much like any leader of that time. Or even more so, much like anyone of us.

I do concede the point that he probably was the right man to oppose Hitler. However, in a way, if he had not been so absolute in demands for unconditional surrender in times when the war was still undecided, the history might have been less bloody. Having an unconditional surrender as the only option, german army would really have no other way than to fight it out.

What would have come out of this what if -scenario of negotiating a peace, is a completely different story.

I think one likely scenario is that Hitler would then have had to spend very little effort securing the West. Timing might have also meant that the Americans were not even sending lend lease to Russia. I think the SU would have collapsed.

As to what would have happened next, that is very hard to say.

EDIT: It is more than just Churchill's stubbornness though. After '38 and '39, Hitler had earned himself an international reputation as a lying snake. How do you make a deal with Hitler? How do you possibly believe that he will live up to anything promised at the negotiation table?

 

[vonhavoc]

I think one likely scenario is that Hitler would then have had to spend very little effort securing the West. Timing might have also meant that the Americans were not even sending lend lease to Russia. I think the SU would have collapsed.

As to what would have happened next, that is very hard to say.

Oh no, what I meant was that what would have had to happen for the peace to be possible. Even as a remotely plausible idea. If we disregard the fact that Churchill didn't want it.

France would have been freed again I suppose, as with Benelux countries, Denmark and Norway too. Poland is a bit iffy, from the german point of view.

For sure, some leadership changes in Germany might have made the peace easier, but then again, in reality, no matter who would have lead Germany, Churchill was set on all or nothing.

 

[Zinegata]

A lot of what you say is true, though there's more to it than that. Yes, Tobruk was inadequate as a supply port, as were Sidi Barrani and Marsa Matruh. However, Rommel constantly pointed out that this was because there was no initiative to actually develop the ports there into full supply hubs, just as there was no initiative to properly defend them from air attacks. This lies mostly with the Italians, who were designated to develop the port's capacity, and simply failed to do so. Don't get me wrong, the Italians wrongfully get a lot of flak for not being competent in battle, which is not true when it comes to Africa, but when it comes stuff like this they really messed up. The same goes for the railway: an Italian railway was meant to have been constructed in the area since 1941. It never was.

The problem here is that people like Rommel think it's really easy to improve a port and make a railway; when in reality that would have eaten up most of the port capacity that was supplying the Afrika Korps to begin with. Tobruk was bringing in maybe 200 tons a day - all of which needs to go to the Afrika Korps or else the men start starving to death. That leaves no room for any port-improvement supplies which in any case will take months to complete.

The only port that had any sort of excess capacity was again, Tripoli, and we're talking about inching a bloody railroad through one thousand kilometers of desert.

That's the reason why the OKW knew Rommel was crazy. He's pretending you can make a port and a railway just by waving a magic wand, when in reality to expand the port and railway will take months and the Afrika Korps would have to stop fighting in the meantime so that port capacity is freed up to bring in the materials needed to improve the port/railroad - because there aren't any factories in North Africa building railway tracks.

Rommel correctly calculated that the only way to gain a victory in Africa was to destroy Montgomery when he was still shattered. A lot of people also don't realize how close he actually got to Alexandria.

Geographic distances are pretty meaningless if you can't hold the real estate due to lack of supplies. The Germans for instance got to Maikop - which is deep in the Caucauses and was a city that could have supplied the Nazis with enough oil forever - but the Soviets simply demolished the oil rigs and there was simply no way to get drilling equipment thousands of kilometers through the supply chain to restore production.

Regarding the 'mountains of supplies' in Tripoli, this is the first I've heard of it...

It's supplies for both Afrika Korps and the Italians. There's no difference between the two given that the most important of the supplies were fuel anyway. This was why Tunisia didn't collapse so quickly in the first place - Rommel had supplies again as soon as he abandoned Egypt and Libya while the British soon outran their own supplies.

The OKW believed Africa was a distraction, and I very much disagree. The British resource-rich possessions of the Middle East were defended by eight divisions that were far from battle-hardened. Taking Egypt and beyond meant taking the Mediterranean, which would have greatly alleviated the supply 'issues' for the Afrika Korps, not only because British sea and air power would be diminished, but also because Alexandria and beyond were proper ports. i.e. the Italians would not have had much excuse to fail to cooperate anymore. There was already anti-British sentiment from the local populations, so breaking through Montgomery would have been the last difficult obstacle course towards British oil. And I do not believe that it would have taken much more to actually win El Alamein–just the Italians properly handling the supply situation, and the OKW keeping its promises. I'm gonna stop talking about the potential of a victory at El Alamein now, since counterfactuals almost always get out of hand.

No, the OKW knew that taking the Middle East was completely insane. The Middle East was NOT a major producer of oil yet at the time - not as big as the Caucauses or even California; and this again delusionally assumes the Brits won't just blow the wells like the Russians did at Maikop.

The Middle East only became the major oil producer post-war; and only because of purchase of a lot of drilling equipment from America (Germany had almost no excess drilling capacity, since the idiots were importing most of their drilling equipment from America pre-war, couldn't make a lot of their own, and what was left needed to go to Ploesti). And in any case you're advocating stretching an already insane supply line of 1000 kilometers to something like 2000 kilometers to reach Arabia, while the Soviet Caucauses armies are just waiting on the flanks ready to pounce.

Rommel's plan was simply insanity on the strategic level from start to finish. It doesn't matter if the Brits only had 8 Divisions. The problem is ultimately one of supply, geography, and the fact that even if you beat those 8 Divisions there are 20 more Soviet Divisions in the Caucauses.

Finally, it's worth noting the supreme irony that there was in fact a lot of oil underneath the desert the Afrika Korps drove over in their vain quest to Alexandria. The Germans simply never found it or exploited it because, again, their oil industry was a shambles that was dependent largely on American equipment and expertise. The "oil offensives" were really a prime example of wishful thinking rather than any realistic solution to Germany's oil problems.

 

[Zinegata]

I agree with that Balck was one of Germanys best generals, but I would put him just below Manstein, Guderian and Rommel(who I think did brilliant with what he had, that he didnt have a chance is another matter)

But I would put Manstein and Guderian before Rommel

Balck's trouncing of an entire Soviet Tank Army at the Chir honestly ranks higher than anything Rommel ever did in the desert or at the head of 7th Panzer; it's just not as well known as the histories tend to focus more on the catastrophe at Stalingrad.

In any case, Manstein and to a lesser extent Guderian were both much better army commanders than Divisional commanders. Rommel was promoted above his speciality.

 

[Zinegata]

You should check your history first. Stalingrad the germans allowed an army to be trapped and encircled by the soviets. Check also soviet casualties were higher than the germans. That's not decisive. The germans pulled back their forces and checked the soviet advance towards Ukraine. They were overextended at Stalingrad and couldn't defend the flanks. At kursk it was another bloody stalemate. It was not a decisive soviet victory it was an operation failure by the germans. Bagration is different as it was an offensive operation that almost destroyed all of german army group centre and inflicted huge casualties on the germans and forced them back out of the soviet union. It was a true military "decisive victory" not a moral victory at stalingrad or a defence at kursk. When your decisive victories are by holding the germans to a stalemate it's not much.

Germany was on the ropes when they had to divert more and more re enforcements to the west to counter act the Anglo-American threat. Kursk is an example where units from the actual battle were re deployed to Italy at that very time.

First of all, casualties are largely meaningless in the context of an industrial war where the prime determinant of fighting power is Gross Domestic Product; not population. Otherwise, British sailors with bolt-action rifles trouncing Manchu armies armed with composite bows should be considered the most elite fighting force ever since they were facing worse than 10:1 odds during the Boxer Rebellion. So really, give the stupid "they suffered more casualties" nonesense a rest. It's one of the dumbest benchmarks for measuring military success ever; befitting only mindless Call of Duty kill streak chasers.

The reality of Stalingrad is that it was a major Soviet victory. They crushed a German army for the first time after the Germans sucker-punched them and destroyed the vast majority of their standing forces in 1941 during Barbarossa. Anything else is just revisionism on a grand scale because you can't comprehend the simple reality that while the German and Soviet GDPs were roughly equal, but the Soviet economy (and war machine) was more weighted towards manpower because they had roughly twice the number of men of military age compared to the Germans. In short, the Soviets had to spend lives instead of bullets, because they had more lives than bullets in their national economy. They can't afford to use measures that spend treasure instead of men, because they don't have that much treasure to begin with.

 

[Klausewitz]

Would be interesting to know what the paratroopers actually did after that.. I mean, not using them at all seems like a bit of a silly option. Or using them to garrison something, or transfering them into regular infantry units.

They were used as elité infantry.
They were usually beefed up with none-airtransportable equipment (Self-propelled AT, artillery, heavier anti-tank guns) and then used to pluck gaps or fight delaying actions.
In the whole "A bridge too far"-mess for example, Fallschirmjäger ambushed the XXX Corps again and again.

 

[lemonsquid]

Id say Guderian in terms of strategy. Patton/Rommel in tactical. I dont know much about any others to be honest, I just know that these 3 were good in their fields of expertise.

 

[SAS]

One name above all others in regard to grand strategy: Erich von Manstein

 

[Atomcreator]

"Bill Slim was a born leader of soldiers. When he became chief of the Imperial General Staff in 1948 it was said of him that he had never forgotten the smell of soldiers' feet. Everything he did was based on ensuring that his men came first. His soldiers knew and loved him because of this.

He fought in Burma and India in a very different way to that of most other British Generals of the Second World War and indeed of most other British Generals of all time.

He tried to outwit the enemy and dislocate him mentally, rather than trying to overcome him by force alone. To do this he took huge logistical and operational risks, he attacked the enemy where the enemy was weakest rather than at his strongest point, he surprised the enemy and he sought to use subtlety and guile in a very powerful and new way.

This method certainly surprised the Japanese and it defeated them at Imphal and Kohima in India in 1944 and again at Mandalay and Meiktila in Burma in 1945. It also surprised his bosses in New Delhi and London, who were taken aback at the remarkable success of this remarkable man."

Robert Lyman, a former army officer, is a military historian and biographer of Bill Slim.

Oh, how anything in Burma is overlooked.

 

[SAS]

I agree Burma is often overlooked maybe because it was a "side show" in regards to the war in total. But I think some of the best British generalship was there as you point out.

 

[Atomcreator]

Montgomery too, took a beaten army in North Africa and by visiting troops became popular with the men. He said they would not take another step backwards. He raised their morale. From then on, they were not defeated again.
Yes, he may have been a defensive general, but, why is this so bad ? It was a perfect counterpoint to the dash of Rommel. Monty did build his strength up. He did take precautions. He did think about his men !
This is not so bad a thing in war. It is very easy to throw your men to death and another to try to plan an operation that does not result in many dead.
It is also very easy to love the extravagance and the brilliance of the early blitzkreig, but calling Montgomery only competent does not do him Justice. He was also a major input into D Day, the biggest seaborne landings operation in history.

 

[Atomcreator]

I agree Burma is often overlooked maybe because it was a "side show" in regards to the war in total. But I think some of the best British generalship was there as you point out.

I'm pretty sure the guys who fought in Burma and put up with the conditions and the merciless Japanese, would not agree that it was a sideshow.
I do know what you are saying though.

 

[D Inqu]

Yes and the war goal was already a failure with or without the battle of stalingrad. You don't make a defensive line inside a city. The forces defending the flank were too thin on the ground before looking at the fact they were under equipped. Yes if 5 armies were destroyed you must remember the soviet losses were higher. Refer to what I have already said as I will just have to keep repeating until you learn to read.

This is the weirdest revisionist nonsense I have heard in a while, which shows you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. I don't think anybody has tried to claim that the war was a "failure" for the Germans at the height of Fall Blau.Nor were they trying to make a defensive line inside a city. The fact the Germans' flanks were weak was their decision, and their problem. And As has been stated many times before, casualty counts alone do not determine a winner

 

[D Inqu]

One name above all others in regard to grand strategy: Erich von Manstein

As in: "how to completely screw up time and time again but then write memoirs of how it it was always someone else's fault".

 

[seattle]

As in: "how to completely screw up time and time again but then write memoirs of how it it was always someone else's fault".

You should write a book about how incompetent Manstein was. It might become a bestseller, after all it would be the first of its kind.
I'd be extremely interested in reading the chapters about the Sichelschnitt, the capture of Sevastopol and the "backhand blow" when he showed his brilliant elastic defence and reverted Stalingrad by destroying several Russian armies in early 1943.
Thank god, Hitler denied Manstein operational freedom and held him on a tight leash. Otherwise the Wehrmacht might have lost the war and suffered several disastrous defeats... oh wait, nevermind.

And some Wiki about Kursk and the following battles:

After five days of fighting Model's advance was stopped, with the Ninth Panzers suffering 25,000 casualties. By 13 July Model's forces were being drawn away towards Orel, where the Soviets had launched Operation Kutuzov.[109] Manstein's forces were able to penetrate the Soviet lines, causing heavy casualties. He reached Prokhorovka, his first major objective, on 11 July, inflicting serious Soviet losses in the resulting Battle of Prokhorovka. However, on 13 July Hitler called off the failed Kursk offensive...

When the Soviets threw their main reserves behind a drive to retake Kharkov on 21–22 August, Manstein took advantage of this to close the gap between the 4th Panzer and 8th Armies and reestablish a defensive line. Hitler finally allowed Manstein to withdraw back across the Dnieper on 15 September.[116][118][119] During the withdrawal, Manstein ordered scorched earth actions to be taken in a zone 20 to 30 kilometres (12 to 19 mi) from the river, and later faced charges at his war crimes trial for issuing this order.[120] Soviet losses in July and August included over 1.6 million casualties, 10,000 tanks and self-propelled artillery pieces, and 4,200 aircraft. German losses, while only one-tenth that of the Russian losses, were much more difficult to sustain, as there were no further reserves of men and materiel to draw on.[121] In a series of four meetings that September, Manstein tried unsuccessfully to convince Hitler to reorganise the high command and let his generals make more of the military decisions.

Even the great Soviet victories of 1943 were only caused by the sheer endless manpower. The Soviets knew every detail of Operation Citadel (this time their intelligence worked perfectly). They had months to prepare defensive positions. They outnumbered the attackers in every field. Simultaneously the Allies landed in Italy, diverting German forces away from the Soviet front. Hitler denying the most capable leaders any sort of operational freedom. Vast L&L shipments in favour of the Soviets and on forth.
And yet, the Soviets lost 10 times (I believe it was more like 7:1 though) more men than Germany in July and August???

Considering all these factors, the Wehrmacht did an incredible job.

 

[Topsy Cret]

Since we are in a realm of what-if, there is also the possibility of invading and taking Malta. That alone would have helped the supply issue. Even if in 1940 the aerial forces on Malta were quite small. But they did have an effect later on.

However, instead of wishy-washing for a Sealion (was pretty clear it wasn't doable at that point anyway (France had fallen, Brits evacuated from Dunkirk, no invasion plan even ready yet)) in 1940 and wasting resources bombing Britain, Malta would have been easy pickings in comparison. After all, taking Crete worked out later.

Absolutely. The decision to take Crete over Malta was a really big mistake.

The problem here is that people like Rommel think it's really easy to improve a port and make a railway; when in reality that would have eaten up most of the port capacity that was supplying the Afrika Korps to begin with. Tobruk was bringing in maybe 200 tons a day - all of which needs to go to the Afrika Korps or else the men start starving to death. That leaves no room for any port-improvement supplies which in any case will take months to complete.

The only port that had any sort of excess capacity was again, Tripoli, and we're talking about inching a bloody railroad through one thousand kilometers of desert.

That's the reason why the OKW knew Rommel was crazy. He's pretending you can make a port and a railway just by waving a magic wand, when in reality to expand the port and railway will take months and the Afrika Korps would have to stop fighting in the meantime so that port capacity is freed up to bring in the materials needed to improve the port/railroad - because there aren't any factories in North Africa building railway tracks.

Geographic distances are pretty meaningless if you can't hold the real estate due to lack of supplies. The Germans for instance got to Maikop - which is deep in the Caucauses and was a city that could have supplied the Nazis with enough oil forever - but the Soviets simply demolished the oil rigs and there was simply no way to get drilling equipment thousands of kilometers through the supply chain to restore production.

It's supplies for both Afrika Korps and the Italians. There's no difference between the two given that the most important of the supplies were fuel anyway. This was why Tunisia didn't collapse so quickly in the first place - Rommel had supplies again as soon as he abandoned Egypt and Libya while the British soon outran their own supplies.

No, the OKW knew that taking the Middle East was completely insane. The Middle East was NOT a major producer of oil yet at the time - not as big as the Caucauses or even California; and this again delusionally assumes the Brits won't just blow the wells like the Russians did at Maikop.

The Middle East only became the major oil producer post-war; and only because of purchase of a lot of drilling equipment from America (Germany had almost no excess drilling capacity, since the idiots were importing most of their drilling equipment from America pre-war, couldn't make a lot of their own, and what was left needed to go to Ploesti). And in any case you're advocating stretching an already insane supply line of 1000 kilometers to something like 2000 kilometers to reach Arabia, while the Soviet Caucauses armies are just waiting on the flanks ready to pounce.

Rommel's plan was simply insanity on the strategic level from start to finish. It doesn't matter if the Brits only had 8 Divisions. The problem is ultimately one of supply, geography, and the fact that even if you beat those 8 Divisions there are 20 more Soviet Divisions in the Caucauses.

Finally, it's worth noting the supreme irony that there was in fact a lot of oil underneath the desert the Afrika Korps drove over in their vain quest to Alexandria. The Germans simply never found it or exploited it because, again, their oil industry was a shambles that was dependent largely on American equipment and expertise. The "oil offensives" were really a prime example of wishful thinking rather than any realistic solution to Germany's oil problems.

Both the Caucasus and the Middle East were producing more than what the Germans were getting from Romania. Taking Egypt gives you the supply route to get the materials out into the oil fields, anyway.

The tons of supplies holed up in Tripoli were Italian supplies that were incompatible with German equipment. This is the thing; the Supremo Commando largely ignored what Rommel and his Italian counterpart were asking for when it came to the supply shipments, and that includes petrol. Again, there were hundreds of vehicles waiting to get on the supply ships to Africa. The simple truth of the matter was that the Italian merchant marine was never properly mobilized until it was far too late, i.e. Tunis. If the Italians had gone through the same effort that the Germans were going through when it came to the war effort, ample supplies could have been landed at their requested ports. This isn't even counterfactual–this is exactly what happened when the Italians realized that losing Africa might actually happen.

Regarding port construction, I disagree it would have taken months to properly build up Tobruk as the main supply port. If proper dedication had been provided, it would have likely taken six weeks. One forgets that Tobruk had the space for easy construction of a larger port, so it's quite a simple matter.

The railway was never completed because the Italians, who exclaimed that they alone would be able to complete it on schedule, failed to do so. This was not only a lack of supplies (which wasn't that lacking in the railroad department), but mainly a lack of initiative.

Taking Egypt and then the ports in the Middle East means that the supply lines are much more manageable, since supplies can come in via sea straight to Alexandria and the Syrian ports.

Of course, all of this doesn't take into account the fact that the Americans would have landed in Africa either way... Even I have trouble stipulating that the Afrika Korps could have taken the Middle East and then travelled back to Morocco/Tunis in time to stomp the Americans the moment they landed.