Poll: WWII Military Leaders

[Nightmonger]

JuSt to clear up an earlier point about the jet engine it would have no means guaranteed to win the war they were slow to take off if the throttle wasn't taken out slowly they burst into flames and had terrible turning potential not to mention each of germanys jet engines had an active service life of 10 hours before they were either scraped or largely refurbished


On topic : Germany it's just hitler was fond of passing round the cyanide when one battle was lost

 

[TheIronRuler]

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!

General Winter also helped defeat the Soviet invasion of Finland.

You're WRONG.
The person that defeated the Russians in the invasion of Finland was non other than...
*DRUMS*
..."Simo Hayha"!

 

[karamazovnew]

Germany had awesome Field Commanders, but the man that set the outcome of the war and predicted the following 50 years of history was Churchill. Many blame him for the Gallipoli fiasco of WW1, but those people have never heard about the Battle of the Dardanelles Straights so I tend to ignore them.

This will turn into a Montgomery vs. Rommel argument, won't it.

Id say Roosevelt was the best, he was smart enough to let his Generals and Admirals to do what they were trained to do.

I completely disagree with you. He allowed Stalin to run amok in Eastern Europe and doomed the USA to 50 years of paranoia and fear. He was way over his head most of the times and downright betrayed Churchill in favor of Stalin.

 

[w9496]

I voted USA for the fact that we had Patton, Eisenhower, and MacArthur. Germany had a great line-up with Rommel and such, but was thwarted by Hitler himself. And why even the mention of the French and the Italians?

 

[Agent Larkin]

Ok this is hard to answer.

With Germany you have Rommell etc who knew how best to utilise what we would now call "Shock and Awe" tactics to quickly overwhelm their opponents. However these tactics only work over short distances and in some cases out-right failed (Polish resistance to German invasion de-volved into Trench warfare in some cases.)

Britain had great Aerial leaders (Compared to Germaniy's Goebbels that isn't saying much) but suffered greatly on the ground and sea by relying on out-dated tactics. Even Montgomery had his failures mainly Market Garden (Task Force Z anyone?)

America is in a weird position. On the one hand they had equipment that should not have passed battlefield testing (The Sherman tank running on flammable petrol instead of diesel) however that equipment was used to great effect by some Generals (Patton). American tactics also had the advantage of being out of the war for two years and thus being able to get the theory behind the Axis tactics.

The Soviet Union didn't really have tactics. Starve the enemy then throw men at him till he goes away is what they mostly did. Though saying Zhukov wasn't a tactical master would be a grave injustice.

Japan.... Apart from realising the potential for Carrier based aircraft nothing of value came from Japan tactically.

France. Oddly enough France could have stopped Germany. French Army equipment was in most cases better then the Germans and while the Air force lagged behind it could have held out until British reinforcement. It also had some very good Military Leaders. De Gaulle is one of the first people to think of Mechanized infantry units and the Foreign Legion (The commanders name escapes me) fought a successful Guerilla campaign against the Axis in Africa for the duration.

Italy....... Yeah I've got nothing.

Other?

While Finland is tempting I'm afraid my knowledge of Finnish leaders is patchy at best.

So my vote on who had the best military leaders? A tie vote between Canada/ANZAC/Poland.

Poland because it's leaders kept the soldiers fighting very successfully after their home was lost.

ANZAC because the Australian/New Zealand leaders fought the Japanese in the jungles and with a viciousness matching the Japanese own. Hell theirs a reason why twenty years later the VC would fear the ANZAC soldier more then the Americans in Nam.

Canada? Operation Totalize. No other reason. Also Hitler was scared of the Canadians hence the reason he posted guards on the Vimy Ridge memorial to prevent vandalism and thus anger the Canucks.

 

[Neverhoodian]

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.

Not really. While the Germans managed to occupy some of the Channel islands between France and Britain and conducted an extensive aerial campaign from 1940 to mid-1941, they never managed to place a single pair of Wermacht boots on the main island. When the Luftwaffe failed to knock the Royal Air Force out of the fight, it was decided that an invasion of Britain would be too risky, and by that point Hitler was hell-bent on invading Russia instead (which was his biggest mistake, in my opinion).

Anyway, I'm probably going to go with popular opinion here and pick Erwin Rommel. He had a keen grasp of battlefield strategy and the equipment his forces used. Plus he seemed to have been a decent man, as he treated Allied POWs chivalrously and was openly critical of Hitler's treatment of the Jews. When it was revealed that he was one of the generals involved in the plot to assassinate Hitler, his stature was increased even further after the war.

JuSt to clear up an earlier point about the jet engine it would have no means guaranteed to win the war they were slow to take off if the throttle wasn't taken out slowly they burst into flames and had terrible turning potential not to mention each of germanys jet engines had an active service life of 10 hours before they were either scraped or largely refurbished


On topic : Germany it's just hitler was fond of passing round the cyanide when one battle was lost

It's also worth mentioning that the jet engines guzzled fuel, a resource that Germany struggled to amass throughout the war. The loss of Russian and Rumanian oil fields, combined with relentless Allied bombing offensives, meant that Germany probably couldn't keep large numbers of jets fueled even if they wanted to.

 

[octafish]

A general is only as good as his troops. So Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Nepal have the best WW2 leaders. Mostly Nepal.

Seriously, Gurkhas aside, Ming the Merciless (Major General Leslie Morshead) was pretty formidable. Take that Rommel.

 

[Xhuliano Pula]

ROMMEL THE BEST

 

[SFMB]

The Japs had a good idea: a surprise attack, like blitzkrieg, but with planes and navy. Though, they should have taken Hawaii and kept it. It was a mock war, with the most noble and fearless soldier on the front. Don't know any of their comanders, but Japan, as a whole almost conquired China, whitch is a big deal.

On a side note: McArthur was a complete maniac. He wanted to bomb Vietnam into oblivion with nukes, although the yanks we're losing the war already, as in vengeance.

 

[LuckyClover95]

The Germans were excellent as they beat the shit out of a lot of europe, however they couldn't beat a tiny little island less than half their size so I voted Britain. For The Battle Of Britain.

 

[Brandon237]

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.

Yes, if those early assassination attempts had succeeded, and Hitler replaced by a more competent but less evil Chancellor, who listened to his generals, then Shite could have seriously hit the fan for the rest of Europe. The generals did not want so many troops at Calais, the generals did not want to spread themselves so thin, and they did not want the no-retreat policy, but with Hitler they couldn't fix that. Also: Attacking Russia was a bit... insane. Greed, greed, greed... bloody good thing that Hitler was an idiot actually.

 

[SFMB]

Oh: And as a side note, check out the war between Finland and Russia. The Finns got some hot shit goin' on. "Every Finn equals 10 of USSR" and that... The Finns won, after all...

 

[demoman_chaos]

Rommel was a military mastermind. If Hitler would have just listened to him, things would have been different.
Hitler made many major mistakes, one of which was not allowing the STG44 assault rifle to be mass produced when the project was first brought to his attention. Instead opting to stick with the bolt action Mauser rifle, which was a major disadvantage compared to the American M1 semi-auto rifle.

 

[Frankster]

Germany is the most obvious answer, and top leader....

Well gonna go against the popular opinion of Rommel on the ground that his story has been vastly overhyped by our media to the point that he is held as an almost "perfect" leader when historical accounts and musings of ther german generals give a different picture.

Basically, he was a fine tactician and great at small scale actions such as leading his panzer force deep into france, he was very agressive and daring overall which led him to victories that would have been impossible for more timid or prudent leaders.

But he was HORRIBLE at logistics, the situation he got himself into in Africa was due to him pushing too much and not fully understanding the logistical problems he had until it was far too late.

So gonna go with Erich Von Manstein.
That guy was a true strategical genius on a scale rommel wasn't.

 

[Quaxar]

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.

Plus help out the good Duce fucking up in the south.
I mean the guy managed to fuck up his own invasion of already-surrendered France. Plus Greece. Plus he lost Lybia to a British army a third the size of his.

Though I feel compelled to vote for him for his <url=http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Mussolini-ggbain.jpg>kickass hat.

 

[Pyro Paul]

Germany.

Problem wasn't invading russia... the problem was Hitler as he kept making alterations to well laid battle plans and impossible demands of the army. Eventually even taking power out of the hands of his generals out of fear of a coup.

case in point.
the assault towards moscow.
Hitler diverted assets from the assault towards moscow which he believed was going smoothly so that they could aid in the seige of Leningrad. Why leningrad? Well because it had the name of Lenin... Imagine the blow to morale hearing that the city of Lenin fell!

those forces diverted was very well the diffrence between laying seige to moscow and just staring at it from the horizon.

 

[Shycte]

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 *

Like Rommel was any better? Biggest fucker since Custer.

 

[katsa5]

Hmmm. . . Patton or Churchill. . . what to do, what to do. "Battle is an orgy of disorder" vs. "If you're going through hell, keep going".

 

[Casimir_Effect]

Got to go with the British. Yes Germany did really well, but it cannot be denied that there were massive problems with the level of command below Hitler. That led to the invasion of the USSR, curtailing of Rommel's army, and the lack of support to the Luftwaffe. And of those commanders, only Hitler had that certain je ne sais quoi that inspires the masses. Rommel could inspire troups but not the common person.

Whereas the speeches of Churchill match and better anything Hitler gave, and Monty (deplorable human being though he may have been) beat Rommel's ass. The only real falter in the British campaign was that which led up to Dunkirk, but they began that fight in an untenable position anyway.

 

[ninja51]

Id say honestly America. I know I know, America is a pretty shit country, but World War II continues to be the time they constantly gloat about, and id say its actually justified. America did have the best commanders, I mean heck, they won. Cant argue against that