Who do you think were the worst 10 officers of each major power in WWII and why? For an added bonus each member of your list gets a fatal heart attack/is forced to retire due to medical reasons on August 31st,1939.
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Worst 10 officers of each WWII power.
- Thread starter Spencersj345.346
- Start date
marathag
Banned
Hah! MacArthur that's an easy #1
Brereton
Sutherland all for Philippines
Fredendall North Africa
McNair
Adm King, Atlantic
Bradley, indecisive in France
MacKelvie at Normandy
Rupertus at Peleliu
Hodges - Bulge, and afterwards.
Short Pearl Harbor, for worrying about sabotage more than being combat effective
Brereton
Sutherland all for Philippines
Fredendall North Africa
McNair
Adm King, Atlantic
Bradley, indecisive in France
MacKelvie at Normandy
Rupertus at Peleliu
Hodges - Bulge, and afterwards.
Short Pearl Harbor, for worrying about sabotage more than being combat effective
Hmm I will say King wasn't the best choice to make both the CNO and head the Atlantic fleet but he did ok work in backing up Nimitz in Washington plus he gave the green light to Coral Sea and Midway. McNair's main fault other than capping the army with 20 to 30 divisions less than ideal was wanting super reliable equipment which considering how much ordnance screwed up tank R@D midwar meant that the US didn't have a good counter to late war German heavy armor other than chucking enough shells at the things or flanking them
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When planning a screw you need to know who to put where to get an ineffective kakistocracy.
Pound, though he did suffer from hip problems and had a brain tumor which might have had something to do with it.
That wasn't a mistake. The US was operating on a Transatlantic supply chain and broken down Pershings in depot would be far less useful than functional Shermans. Look at the number of German tanks lost to mechanical faults, the most useful tank is the only tank on the battlefield and because of the reliability of US tanks there was a lot of times when the only tank on the battlefield was a US one.
SsgtC
Banned
Bradley definitely doesn't belong on this list. He was one of the better Allied Generals. I disagree with King as well, but I can definitely see the arguments for including him. I'd say he's borderline for this.
Personally, I'd have Percival and MacArthur ranked as 1 and 1A, followed by Brereton, Monty, William Blandy, Short and others
Special mention must go to a certain Australian General who ran away from Singapore....
I'd argue that Hitler, Mussolini, and Churchill belong on the list because of how much they micromanaged.
Definitely Goering.
Definitely Goering.
Driftless
Donor
Some of the folks on the list are there because they were in the wrong role at the wrong time. i.e. Percival was considered a very good staff officer, but history showed he was way out of his depth as the top guy in the theater. Others got promoted out of their depth for being adept at playing the peacetime promotion internal wars better than their counterparts, i.e. Sutherland. Others had no business being Generals under any circumstance....
This Gilbert and Sullivan lyric came to mind:
"I polished up that handle so carefullee
That now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navee! "
This Gilbert and Sullivan lyric came to mind:
"I polished up that handle so carefullee
That now I am the Ruler of the Queen's Navee! "
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Deleted member 94680
Lord Beaverbrook was not an officer. Also he was instrumental in running war production during the BoB...
To be fair ultimately it was ordnance branch's fault that the better tanks weren't ready in time not McNair's and since McNair didn't survive the war he wasn't around to defend his decisions postwar
marathag
Banned
Reliable Tanks isn't why he is on that list. Almost everyone wants reliable tanks, few were able to deliver as well as the USA.
No, his main sins are his views on how tondeal with Enemy Tanks.
It goes back to the Louisiana Maneuvers. His rulling was the only way AT guns could be knocked out was solely by overrun attacks, not by cannons or MGs on Red Teams Tanks. This screwed over Devers, who was doing the attacking.
So the story was Anti Tank was supreme over armor.
Did I mention that McNair was from Artillery?
Anyway, the Former Redleg came up , with the ideas for the Tank Destroyer Branch, and decided the SPG guns were no good for AT, and AT guns should be towed.
Under his influence, the M5 3" AT gun was to be the main, the WWI era tube on a M2 Howitzer carriage.
So, it was heavier, larger, and less effective than the German PaK40 or Soviet Divisional gun
PaK40 75mm weighed 3100 pounds,
Soviet D-44 85mm was 3800 pounds
The M5 was near 4900 pounds
For guns of similar power, though the M5 never got APCR, unlike the other two that got advanced penetrators.
The M5 had a terrible kills per hit record in the Bulge.
For AT reasons alone, McNair deserves to be on the list.
I'd put him on twice, for the waste of the TD policy.
In 1942, the US could have had a 90mm GMC for.AT duties, but McNair spiked that, first of many
