Poll: WWII Military Leaders

SckizoBoy

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I'm at home for once, and my boredom requires alleviating.

Question: who, in your (esteemed (sic)) opinion, was the most talented (open to interpretation) commander (any service) during the Second World War?

WRT the poll, I wanted to get Finland in there somewhere... sorry.

EDIT: *peeved* NO POLITICIANS... sorry... I'd rather responses detailed those with some justification of (repeated) strategic/operational/tactical acumen beyond vague grand strategic decisions (I'm looking at you Churchill! You may have been John's biographer, but you'll never be John!).
 

TheIronRuler

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Definetly Germany.
The mistake was Invading Russia.
If NAPOLEON didn't make it, why do you think YOU can pull it off?
Why make the risk? Invade Britain!
Set a line of defense, make treaties, start moving internal politics.

Become a Nazy superpower.

They made such a mistake, but I'm very fotunate because that's the reason I'm alive.

EDIT: On the other hand, GENERAL WINTER was a great commander, he completely wiped out most of the attack force Nazi Gemany sent, so one point for Russia!
 

oliveira8

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TheIronRuler said:
Definetly Germany.
The mistake was Invading Russia.
If NAPOLEON didn't make it, why do you think YOU can pull it off?
Why make the risk? Invade Britain!
They did invade Britain. They failed, so they went to Russia.
 

TheIronRuler

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oliveira8 said:
TheIronRuler said:
Definetly Germany.
The mistake was Invading Russia.
If NAPOLEON didn't make it, why do you think YOU can pull it off?
Why make the risk? Invade Britain!
They did invade Britain. They failed, so they went to Russia.
If they just invented the Jet Engine in 1941.... They could've ruld the world!

Eh, enough fantasizing about my doom.
 

Puzzlenaut

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I answered the question in the thread title ("Leader"), not the poll question "best commanders", thinking of Winston Churchill. Britain's commanders were better in the 2nd than in the 1st world, but still left in the dust by Germany's. More experience than most of the USA's and Russia's though (seeing as basically Russia's entire officer class had been killed and replaced a few years before WWII).
 

WouldYouKindly

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Probably Germany. From a purely military stand point, they had excellent leadership. Hitler was a moron for attacking Russia.

Russia understood their strengths and the German weakness. Simply, they had a lot more men.

The U.S. and Britian had a good one two punch of lots of men and effective air support.

From a command stand point, U.S. and British leaders were competent and capable, however, the other aspects of our war machine is what won the battles for us.
 

RabbidKuriboh

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i'll go with churchill and the brittish, it took serious balls to still stand against germany after france got steam rolled, also radar, the first computer for codebreaking oh and the royal navy and raf kicked ass
 

Soviet Steve

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TheIronRuler said:
Definetly Germany.
The mistake was Invading Russia.
If NAPOLEON didn't make it, why do you think YOU can pull it off?
Why make the risk? Invade Britain!
Set a line of defense, make treaties, start moving internal politics.

Become a Nazy superpower.

They made such a mistake, but I'm very fotunate because that's the reason I'm alive.

EDIT: On the other hand, GENERAL WINTER was a great commander, he completely wiped out most of the attack force Nazi Gemany sent, so one point for Russia!
Wouldn't it have been a bit risky to wait? The Russians were in the middle of a massive military buildup, they were (re-)forming mechanized corps which would've been able to deal with the panzers easily, and were also able to take carefull notes on how the Germans fought their wars by researching German victories with the allies.

As for Russia's general winter, it would have been less effective if Hitler hadn't concluded that the best solution to winter was to not pack winter uniforms.


OT: I definitely think that Germany had the better generals, and the fact that they were so successful tended to rest on the quality of their officer corps more than anything else. Well, that and the infinite power of L. Ron Hubbard but that's a story for another day.
 

winter2

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Staskala said:
This will turn into a Montgomery vs. Rommel argument, won't it.
I doubt it. Everybody knows Monty is vastly overrated as a commander.

* runs away *
 

FFHAuthor

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Germany, without a doubt. Thankfully it was offset by the political handicaps and control that Hitler exerted over his high command, demanding political maneuvers rather than listening to his best Generals. The overall commanders of the German Military were more political appointees, not competent soldiers. Along with a German technological and training advantage, they -should- have won the Second World war. Thank god for politics.

British Generals were adequate, but they made some exceptional blunders, and their primary actions were to react to German or Japanese assaults. (Need I mention Market-Garden? More Costly operation than D-Day. Or the Fall of Singapore?)

American Generals were good, but I think it mainly comes from a grinding perseverance rather than a true Strategic ability. North Africa/Italy and France were mainly grinding campaigns with one objective, and they also made their share of mistakes. (The Ardennes , Anzio, Kassarine Pass, The Philippines to name a couple.)

Russian Generals were talented, and they were exceptionally good Strategic planners, although their actions were limited by Stalin as much as Germany's were limited by Hitler. Not a step back, hold your ground, attack at all costs...not exactly a good way of utilizing your nation's advantages; space, space, space and more space.

France had some Excellent Generals, but they didn't get to operate or even fight for the most part. De'Gaulle had some excellent ideas that might have countered the German Blitzkrieg, but he didn't get the chance to implement them because of the French Government's political decisions.

In the end, I don't think you can really claim that the war was decided by Generals or by armies, once Japan brought America into the war in the Pacific, the war was decided, just as when Germany brought Russia into the war in Europe, it was decided. Industry and resources won the war for the Allies. There were many opportunities for the Germans to win the war in Europe with a negotiated peace (Invade England, or even easier, destroy the BEF at Dunkirk and force a a negotiated end by England.) And the opportunity for the United States to completely avoid a war in the Pacific. (The Japanese were willing to negotiate a withdraw from China after the Oil and Steel embargo so long as token face saving measures could be taken.)
 

Jakub324

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Britain or Germany. Russian tactics rarely evolved past "CHARGE!!!!!!!" French tactics were surrender at the earliest opportunity and I can only assume Italian tactics were to do so badly the enemy feel bad for you. American tactics were just fairly solid, fairly standard Military manoeuvres.
 

Zebra on Crack

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Well the Wermacht definitely had a much better set of commanders and officers. (I.E. Rommel). This is all obviously excluding any silly S.S. officer they were just too silly to do anything worth reward.
 

joemegson94

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I tell you who it wasn't: Hitler.

I think I'll fight two major powers on opposite fronts, as well as France. That'll end well.
 

Henkie36

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Germany had the advantage in terms of armament, preperation, and military commanders. In fact, I will dare to go as far as saying that there was only one problem in the German war machine: Adolf Hitler. It was a combination of bad luck and ego's bigger then that of an average American that Operation Barbarossa failed, and the Battle for Britain was lost due to Hitler cocking it up. The same thing can be said by the way for Operation Overlord. Hitler didn't want to be disturbed at the time.
 

SckizoBoy

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winter2 said:
I doubt it. Everybody knows Monty is vastly overrated as a commander.

* runs away *
Yes, run over to me, I can rant all day about how Montgomery was an arrogant entitled self-involved irreverent unrepentant twit...
 

Jegsimmons

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hitler was an idiot...but his commanders were geniuses...but then again we had some great leaders, Eisenhower, Patton, and MacArthur.
got to go with America for this one.
 

TomK

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Staskala said:
This will turn into a Montgomery vs. Rommel argument, won't it.
It should turn into a Patton vs Rommel argument, Monty was too slow and unimaginative.
as for world leaders...
Hitler was completely militarily incompetent, Russia and North Africa can tell us that
Churchill was good, but got himself too focused on small parts of larger campaigns, he also holds a lot of responsibility for the Greece fiasco, that being said he was a total badass, walking around outside during air raids? balls of steel.
Id say Roosevelt was the best, he was smart enough to let his Generals and Admirals to do what they were trained to do.