Who was the most brilliant general of the war?

[Montemurro]

Seems like it's time for a Rommel-fan to enter the stage

When Rommel fought in North Africa he was merely there to keep the Italians in the war and received forces according to this (In the spring of '42 he had about 560 tanks, but of these 50 were Panzer IIs and 240 Italian), yet in the end he was still very close to defeating a superior Allied Army (Spring '42: 5 motorized divs. and 2 armoured with 900 tanks none of these completely useless) in 1942, what Allied general could have done the same if situation was reversed?

While stalking the Allied forces in '41 he had to make fast decisions to keep them on the run, while the Allies after the victory at El Alamein took themselve three months (early August- late October) to plan a counter-attack and all they came up with was a direct frontal assault (Monty, Monty... ) on the under-supplied Axis forces.

Rommel was also one of the first to use 88mm AA guns as AT guns and also grasped from the beginning that static defences and non-motorized forfces was all but useless in the desert since there always was an open southern desert flank by which you could surround enemy positions and force their surrender (Places like El Alamein and Wadi Akarit being the exceptions) while used these positions happily like for instance the fortified boxes at the Gazela line.

So I would say that Rommel was in the group of generals that I would call the best general of WWII, others would be Von Manstein and Kesselring.

A finale note to bring in a Romanian (!) general, is that according to Anthony Beevors "Stalingrad", general Lascar was a somewhat capable general and the only Romanian commander the Germans held in respect, hardly one of the best in the war, but worth mentioning since Germany's Axis-allies didn't have a surplus of capable generals

Well, that was just my two cents

 

[unmerged(9600)]

Originally posted by Top Cat
Um... bit of an overstatement that, no?

Perhaps a little. Nevertheless, his rolling barage and scientific artillery doctrines, as well as his stormtrooper infiltration tactics at Paeschendale were brilliant and fantastically succesful. And most importantly, they reduced casualties like crazy. There was a reason that the Germans were afraid of the Canadian guns in both wars.

 

[Executor]

From Military Review: The Rommel Myth

 

[Montemurro]

Originally posted by Executor
From Military Review: The Rommel Myth

Looks like I got myself some bedtime reading Will probably find some excuse to call it all b*llsh** though

 

[Executor]

You might want to skip past the Analyzing Operational Art section, that's not too interesting.

 

[unmerged(6964)]

Originally posted by Neil
Perhaps a little. Nevertheless, his rolling barage and scientific artillery doctrines, as well as his stormtrooper infiltration tactics at Paeschendale were brilliant and fantastically succesful. And most importantly, they reduced casualties like crazy. There was a reason that the Germans were afraid of the Canadian guns in both wars.

The problem is that that's not how it worked. The British and Dominion forces did not develop their artillery methods in a vacuum, not even within the relative autonomy of the Dominion corps. Credit has to be spread very widely. Artillery doctrine was a hotch potch from a variety of differnt sources, including the early works on sound ranging and creeping barrages from the French. Credit has also to go to people like Horne, Budworth, Tudor, Uniacke etc. Lawrence Bragg deserves much of the credit for the sound ranging and meteorological artillery plotting methods which were developed. In infantry doctrine it's a similar picture. Some of it emerged from extensive swapping of notes with the French. Much of it emerged from the work of Sir Ivor Maxse both in the pre-war years and in the learning process during and following the Somme. The Canadian Corps was one of the best formations on the Western Front and enjoyed a significant amount of autonomy, but to suggest that their methods were developed in some sort of hermetically sealed Canadian Corps bubble paints a false picture. As for the effectiveness of Canadian artillery, I have to say i've never seen anything serious to suggest that it was in any serious measure more effective or efficient than the (very effective) British and Australian artillery.

But I digress.

 

[unmerged(9600)]

I'll admit my sources might be a little bit biased, since they consist mostly of historians with a great deal of personal connection to the Canadian Forces, including a cousin of General Thomas Crerar. They tend to paint an extremely good picture of the Canadians in WWI.

However, I contend that MacNaughton's weather testing and computing range vs. barrel wear on a gun by gun basis was extremely helpful for precision artillery.

 

[unmerged(11486)]

Well, if that is your qualification for a great general, then what about Howard Aiken? He developed the first electromechanical computer (built by IBM) which was invaluable for the Navy and Army (as well as the British services) in calculating ballistics tables.

These calculations led to the impressive accuracy of allied guns (far better than German guns given equal circumstances and barring operator error).

Steele

 

[unmerged(11486)]

Of course, I am being fecetious. I do not seriosuly believe that Aiken was a brilliant general. Nor was MacNaughton.

Steele

 

[Aetius]

What about the Japanese Generals? Any good? I am still surprised by the Japanese audacity in its drive southwards. They basically attacked every single colonial holding in the SW Pacific simulataneously, and succeeded, and successfully held on to everything apart from the Philippines

 

[unmerged(9600)]

Originally posted by Steele
Of course, I am being fecetious. I do not seriosuly believe that Aiken was a brilliant general. Nor was MacNaughton.

Was Aiken a field commander? MacNauighton was, commanding the entire 1st Canadian Army in WWII before his promotion to Minister of War, as well as the entire Canadian Artillery Corps in WWI. Considering that the man commanded the most important part of the Canadian offensive of 1917, I wouldn't scoff too hard at MacNaughton were I you.

Sure, he wasn't a lead-from-the-front charger like Patton, but he got the job done, and contributed to winning the war. From a Canadian perspective, he is the most important soldier we ever had.

 

[unmerged(11486)]

MacNaughton was the overall commander of the Canadian forces, not a field commander.

Aiken was a civilian engineer working under contract for the Department of War.

In both cases, the person in question did not lead a force in combat during World War Two, but they did make a substantial contribution to the Allied war effort.

Whats the difference?

I am being sardonical here. I believe that MacNaughton was a fair officer, but certainly not the most brilliant during the war. I am not trying to insult anyone, nor am I implying that an American engineer was a better general than a Canadian military officer. The point was that simply because someone contributed a technical advantage to their side does not make them a brilliant general, which was the original post topic.

Steele

 

[unmerged(9600)]

Well, the list had been broken down into country lists earlier up the way. And I think that MacNaughton was the most brilliant Canadian military mind in the twentieth century. However, if WWII field command is the topic, then Guy is the man, for Canada. Wouldn't say he's better than Patton or Zhukov, but he's Canadian #1.

Besides, although it applies to WWI, I think that stringing together an entirely new way of winning a battle from bits and bytes of information and your own anal-retentive attention to detail is a sign of brilliance. God knows that's how Napoleon did it.

 

[unmerged(15974)]

Albert Kesselring imposed a stalemate against Mark Clark's forces in Italy. Anzio was almost an abyssmal failure.

Patton, Bradley and Hodges spent more time making up for Monty's mistakes than anything else.

Japanese Generals: General Homma was a good tactician, but was accused by MacArthur(the man he defeated) of war crimes and hanged, there is much speculation that the charges were trumped up to satisfy MacArthur.

German Generals were hampered by the command structure of the Reich, not being able to counterattack without Hitlers permission on D-Day was simply absurd.

 

[Montemurro]

Executor: The "Rommel Myth" doesn't really rock my view. For instance at the time Rommel asked Halder for two extra panzer divisions was the 19. March '41, at this point Germany wasn't at war with the Soviet Union, and the British forces weren't more then a single armoured division and some motorized infantry. With the two extra panzer divisions he would have 3 and a bit panzer divisions, which he felt was what needed to get to the Suez and beyond.

Much of the logistics problems could have been solved by seizing Malta or at least bomb the island until Suez was taken, after which it would have been impossible to supply Malta. Both the seizure of Malta and the capture of Suez and beyond could easily have been achieved in '41, because the British were seriously on the heels after their defeat in Greece and Libya. This way they could have threatend the Soviet oil field from the south through Turkey.

Finally, what strategy should Rommel had used in '42? Wait on the border of Egypt while the Allies continued to built up their forces, while he received next to no reinforcements? It was now or never if he wanted to achieve any thing other then certain defeat, the Allies would only get stronger and thus make an attack completely futile.

This is perhaps getting a bit topic, perhaps I sould start a new "WWII in North Africa" thread

 

[unmerged(15974)]

I seem to remember there having been several attempts to control Malta through Naval blockade on the part of the Germans and Italians, but none of them succeeded....but, I do agree...control of Malta would have had a significant impact on the outcome of events in North Africa, or at least have prolonged the end result.

 

[Montemurro]

At one point Hitler wanted to know whether Malta could be rendered unuseable by air bombing, but the conclusion was that it would only remain out of service as long as it was bombed. Ugo Cavallero (Italian Supreme Commander) then started working on "Operation Hercules", but they relied upon support from German paratroopers and because Hitler feared that the Italian navy and air force would leave the Germans to fight for themselves, he withdrew his support for the operation.

Edit: Operation Hercules was of course an invasion of Malta.

Edit of the edit: Operation Hercules was of course the German codename for an invasion of Malta.

 

[unmerged(15974)]

I remember now...

Hitler was reluctant to use paratroopers after the heavy losses they suffered in the invasion of Crete.....

 

[unmerged(11486)]

Neil: Good point. As I said, I was not trying to offend anyone, and I am glad you didn't take it as such.

As for my own selection...

US- Patton
UK- Montgomery (I don't like him, but he was a capable general)
USSR- Zhukov
Germany- Manstein
Japan- Yamashita

Steele

 

[unmerged(9362)]

OT

Originally posted by spfisk
At one point Hitler wanted to know whether Malta could be rendered unuseable by air bombing, but the conclusion was that it would only remain out of service as long as it was bombed. Ugo Cavallero (Italian Supreme Commander) then started working on "Operation Hercules", but they relied upon support from German paratroopers and because Hitler feared that the Italian navy and air force would leave the Germans to fight for themselves, he withdrew his support for the operation.

Just some corrections:
1) Italian name of the occupation of Malta was C.3, Herkules was the German.
2) Hitler refused his support to that operation for many reasons (the most important: Rommel wanted in North Africa the units that had to be used for Malta), but not for the fear that German forces would have been abandoned (by the way, the only German unit would have been the Ramcke parachute brigade, all the other divisions were Italian) during fighting. The only excuse he gave was that he feared the Italian Navy would not has been able to escort supplies to Malta after the occupation, but adm. Raeder pointed out that Italian Navy was able to supply the far larger Italo-German Army in North Africa.