Eisenhower, Montgomery, Zhukov, Rommel, and Yamamoto: comparable to each other?

CalBear

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...

Disagree here. Patton was by far the most over-rated ground commander on any side during WWII.

PAtton wasn't even the most ove rated U.S. ground commander of the war. That particular distinction goes to MacArthur.
 
IMHO, Zhukov is the best because he commanded the largest armies and in terms of sheer scale Operation Bagration is without equal in the grand history of human warfare. He was not perfect and has the major blemish of Operation Mars on his record, though no generals *are* perfect.

Eisenhower was a perfect man to fight the bureaucratic, political war that WWII was, and in terms of the job he had, he is to the Western allies what Zhukov was to the Eastern, both of their political roles give them great importance.

Montgomery was one of the great British generals of the war, and one of the few on either side to actually *not* want to fight in the We Have Reserves fashion. Which is a point to his credit. His egotism was par for the course in this war of prima donnas.

Yamamoto executed one of the most tactically brilliant strikes in history, while not a great admiral, the planning of the Battle of Pearl Harbor *was* a brilliant stroke. Unfortunately he continued to favor over-complicated plans and this helped do him in.

Rommel benefited greatly from PR, like Patton, and both of them do not have much in their favor beyond PR. Both are above Dougie MacArthur who was the bottom of this entire list.
 
IMHO, Zhukov is the best because he commanded the largest armies and in terms of sheer scale Operation Bagration is without equal in the grand history of human warfare. He was not perfect and has the major blemish of Operation Mars on his record, though no generals *are* perfect.

Eisenhower was a perfect man to fight the bureaucratic, political war that WWII was, and in terms of the job he had, he is to the Western allies what Zhukov was to the Eastern, both of their political roles give them great importance.

Montgomery was one of the great British generals of the war, and one of the few on either side to actually *not* want to fight in the We Have Reserves fashion. Which is a point to his credit. His egotism was par for the course in this war of prima donnas.

Yamamoto executed one of the most tactically brilliant strikes in history, while not a great admiral, the planning of the Battle of Pearl Harbor *was* a brilliant stroke. Unfortunately he continued to favor over-complicated plans and this helped do him in.

Rommel benefited greatly from PR, like Patton, and both of them do not have much in their favor beyond PR. Both are above Dougie MacArthur who was the bottom of this entire list.


a question i always post to the rommel bashers/overrated crowd


of HIS choices, which ones should he have done differently

i only come up with 3 in a VERY busy career

1. not launched the second round of attacks on tobruk in spring 1941 after the australians had demonstrated they wouldn't be taken out without a massive effort (he didn't lose all that many tanks or infantry BUT on a small force like his every loss hurt)
2. during crusader he shouldn't have done the "dash to the wire" and instead should have concentrated his tanks to either smash the disorganized XXX corps OR pin the 2nd new zealand division into a cauldron and destroy them.... he would have had to retreat regardless given the horribleness of his supply situation BUT the body count would have been a lot more favorable if he didn't have the panzers loafing about on the border
3. not conducted the mareth offensive after kasserine.... he knew he was already going to be relieved for disobeying orders and defeatism anyway; he should have just retired the 1st italian army and the dak back to the more defensible wadi akrit position and kept them on the defensive... just let benny and adolf add it to the list of things they are pissed at you about instead of losing a lot of tanks when monty was dug in and had a shit load of artillery backing him up


otherwise his decisions where almost always clever and bold
 

CalBear

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marc clark is more overrated in that someone somewhere doesn't know how shitty he was


Clark is a strong contender, but for sheer degree of incompentence resulting in a Medal of Honor (a decoration most people see as "proof" of greatness for a General Officer), Macarthur has to get the nod.
 
I would agree with those, from what I have seen he gets the most flack online over failing to hold the Allies at Normandy and failing to take Egypt.

he didn't have the resources to possibly do either of those things even if every single decision he made was the right one
 
he didn't have the resources to possibly do either of those things even if every single decision he made was the right one

Regarding Egypt I have looked at the balance of forces and agree.

Normandy is an interesting question, but I agree given the circumstances present on June 6th 1944 the Allies were going to get a foothold and eventually expand that out and take France.

I also think people forget Rommel was injured so he had nothing to do with Operation Lüttich also known as the Mortain offensive which allowed the Allies to break out of the box the German military had them in even earlier then they would have otherwise.
 
Regarding Egypt I have looked at the balance of forces and agree.

Normandy is an interesting question, but I agree given the circumstances present on June 6th 1944 the Allies were going to get a foothold and eventually expand that out and take France.

I also think people forget Rommel was injured so he had nothing to do with Operation Lüttich also known as the Mortain offensive which allowed the Allies to break out of the box the German military had them in even earlier then they would have otherwise.

Kluge (who replaced Rommel) didn't want the Mortain offensive either; but the OKW ordered it and refused his resignation and send vauge threats of sending an ss squad to come shoot Kluge in the middle of the night if he didn't get on board with "the fuhrers plan"

considering Rommel didn't have tactical control of the divisions (in OKW reserve) or the intel gathering against the allied invasion, he was lucky to do as well as he did (since idiot Hitler sent the tanks towards the beaches in daylight which rommel had a standing order against)
 

Commissar

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Eisenhower only got the job because Marshall couldn't be spared and he wasn't picked for military abilities - he was picked for his political abilities and the fact that Marhsall knew Eisenhower would just do whatever Marshall suggested without putting up any kind of resistance.

Lt. Gen. Frank Maxwell Andrews was the one originally slated to be Supreme Allied Commander Europe.

His unfortunate death elevated Eisenhower to the post.

Also if Maxwell had lived, he would also have gone on to command the USAF which he had fought to have as a separate service branch.
 
a question i always post to the rommel bashers/overrated crowd


of HIS choices, which ones should he have done differently

i only come up with 3 in a VERY busy career

1. not launched the second round of attacks on tobruk in spring 1941 after the australians had demonstrated they wouldn't be taken out without a massive effort (he didn't lose all that many tanks or infantry BUT on a small force like his every loss hurt)
2. during crusader he shouldn't have done the "dash to the wire" and instead should have concentrated his tanks to either smash the disorganized XXX corps OR pin the 2nd new zealand division into a cauldron and destroy them.... he would have had to retreat regardless given the horribleness of his supply situation BUT the body count would have been a lot more favorable if he didn't have the panzers loafing about on the border
3. not conducted the mareth offensive after kasserine.... he knew he was already going to be relieved for disobeying orders and defeatism anyway; he should have just retired the 1st italian army and the dak back to the more defensible wadi akrit position and kept them on the defensive... just let benny and adolf add it to the list of things they are pissed at you about instead of losing a lot of tanks when monty was dug in and had a shit load of artillery backing him up


otherwise his decisions where almost always clever and bold

Paying attention to his logistics and not going off half-cocked into offensives that hurt him attritionally while aiding the Allies would have been a big start in its own right. Given what he did with one division, imagine what he would have done with two, particularly since the Allies prior to Montgomery had too many problems at one time to stop him.
 
Paying attention to his logistics and not going off half-cocked into offensives that hurt him attritionally while aiding the Allies would have been a big start in its own right. Given what he did with one division, imagine what he would have done with two, particularly since the Allies prior to Montgomery had too many problems at one time to stop him.

Rommel was NOT in a position where he could just build up for offensives the way monty could for 3 reasons

1. There where few if any good defensive positions in the desert, your southern flank was always open; so sitting still (a la the British as Gazalla or the Italians at Sidi Barani) was asking for bad things to happen
2. Rommel's supply net was unreliable (ie a cargo ship with 55 tanks might make it from naples to tripoli, or it might be sunk on the way, or hitler might cancel it and send the tanks to the eastern front)
3. British reinforcement capability was substantially better than Rommel's so every day he waited, the British numerical superiority would increase (think about how much the delay at Kursk cost the Germans and you get the idea of what I am saying)

so going off "half cocked" was his best bet more often then it wasn't

there was nothing Rommel could do about his logistics except capture Alexandria

as a ground forces commander, he had no responsibility or control over the regia marina bringing the supplies to libya
as a ground forces commander he had no responsibility or control over the regia aeronautica or the luftwaffe flying top cover for the convoys or suppressing malta
he had no control over hitler's decision to committ 90 percent of the german war effort to the eastern front

he wrote scathing memo's to the OKW saying his logistics and supply chain was insuffecient... they told him to capture forward ports like Tobruk and Mersah Matruh... then when he did he was told the Regia Marina didn't want to challenge the Royal Navy and that he had to capture Alexandria to drive them out of the Meditteranian


honestly...if you say HE messed up his logistics or didn't take care of them... what WITHIN THE RESPONSIBILITY OF HIS COMMAND could he do to possibly make them better?
 
marc clark is more overrated in that someone somewhere doesn't know how shitty he was

Heh, How he got a command in Korea is beyond human comprehension, Kesselring was undoubtedly the luckiest German Front C-in-C of the entire war.

Clark is a strong contender, but for sheer degree of incompentence resulting in a Medal of Honor (a decoration most people see as "proof" of greatness for a General Officer), Macarthur has to get the nod.

All true, but agreeably Big Mac may have been the best Shogun Japan ever had, so that has to be added to the equation.

IMHO, Zhukov is the best because he commanded the largest armies and in terms of sheer scale Operation Bagration is without equal in the grand history of human warfare. He was not perfect and has the major blemish of Operation Mars on his record, though no generals *are* perfect.

Konstantin Rokossovskiy is responsible for Operation Bagration. I'm convinced he was overshadowed by Zhukov because of his getting purged pre-war and his surname being so damned hard to spell right.:p
 

Ambition

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Heh, How he got a command in Korea is beyond human comprehension, Kesselring was undoubtedly the luckiest German Front C-in-C of the entire war.

All great generals are lucky.

Just to point out: Before starting to criticize this and that decision people ought to remember that the generals do not have the luxury of sitting in a comfortable chair examining the detailed statistics and battleplans of both sides. Decisions have to be made under constant pressure based on vague information at best while there are arriving numerous contradictory reports from subordinates. The men might collapse at any moment, death is a constant possibility and predicting future is almost impossible. Military historians go far too often for the ''oh, he should have just done that, its obvious'' explanation while ignorantly assuming the situation was as clear as still water. It never is, far from it.

I'm not saying that everyone completely ignores the chaotic nature of war, just that we ought to remember the reality.
 
What did Mark Clark do that was so terrible!

I haven't heard of him though... so yeah. :eek:
Going from memory he was either too bold and spread his forces too thin allowing them to be counterattacked or threw exhausted US divisions at almost impossible situations when his own officers we're telling him there were other options and he also had other rested troops at hand, then swung the other way and was too cautious which allowed the Germans time to regroup and counterattack and for the capper he went against orders and captured Rome which was militarily useless whilst allowing the German 10th army which he apparently could of blocked to escape simply for the PR of being the general to take Rome.
 
All great generals are lucky.

Just to point out: Before starting to criticize this and that decision people ought to remember that the generals do not have the luxury of sitting in a comfortable chair examining the detailed statistics and battleplans of both sides. Decisions have to be made under constant pressure based on vague information at best while there are arriving numerous contradictory reports from subordinates. The men might collapse at any moment, death is a constant possibility and predicting future is almost impossible. Military historians go far too often for the ''oh, he should have just done that, its obvious'' explanation while ignorantly assuming the situation was as clear as still water. It never is, far from it.

I'm not saying that everyone completely ignores the chaotic nature of war, just that we ought to remember the reality.


Clark was an idiot without hindsight

operation avalanche (his baby) was the dumbest campaign of the entire war

over 50k casualties taken south of rome fighting through rough, easily defensible, malaria infested terrain against germany economy of force infantry forces who where outnumbered (depending on the date) 2-5 to 1

the allies had air and naval superiority

after huskey they could have landed anywhere in italy they wanted to, and their air power was such that they could conduct complete recon to locate german forces... kesselring said at the time that a landing north of rome at citivechia would have captured every german division south of rome and been a major allied victory

instead clark (who was an ignorant asshole who treated infantry like digits) landed at salerno where the only fucking full strength german panzer division in the whole country was...somehow those 160 tanks and assault guns in the 16th panzer division just sitting covering the gulf of salerno didn't convince him that he should pick a less obvious (or better yet less defeneded) place to send the infantry ashore
 
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