Who were the good generals of WW-2?

Coulsdon Eagle

Monthly Donor
1. tobruk 41 was a tactical setback, not some sort of strategic debacle... he only lost 500 men and 25 permanent tanks; a lot of that could also be blamed on the italians not manuevering properly at the outset of the battle or bothering to provide rommel with accurrate maps of the place

2. stretching his supply lines to the limit made perfect tactical and strategic sense... by pushing the british far back, it stopped them from being able to fly direct to malta to improve it's supply situation, and it kept british aircraft out of range from attacking his convoys; so his streching of his supply lines also kept his supply lines more secure from attack... also, the british were always being reinforced much more rapidly than him, so any decision to stand on the defensive closer to supply bases would lead to this situation worsening; under the circumstances, his offensives was the best choice in a group of bad options

3. NOBODY disobeyed orders in 1942; NOBODY... Rommel's two pervious non compliances (sunflower and the rebound from crusader/2nd agehlia offensive) were early executions of approved orders, not strait disobeys... Guderian and Hoepner disobeyed orders in 1941 and they got themselves relieved, and in Hoepners case, thrown out of the army with loss of pension; it wasn't till after the stalingrad debacle that favorite sons took liberty with fuhrer orders

I believe Rommel's decisions and his own personal actions during Crusader threw away a great opportunity for a crushing Axis victory. Cruwell was determined to destroy the remnants of the British armour but Erwin decided to vacate over the wire. In that battle steady, unshowy Auchinleck outclassed flashy Rommel.
 
Slim seems to have all of the talents required, and even if not outstanding in more than a few, he does not seem to have any deficiences and his overall abilities raise him well above the average. Indeed of all British commanders I would only place Marlborough & Wellington ahead of him as an army commander.

While Slim was good, he never faced the German Army and was wrongfooted by the Japanese a number of times. The biggest question mark for me would be his role in First Arakan - other generals would have taken command on the spot to sort out the mess. On the other hand getting on with Stillwell makes him exceptional.

Perhaps the most under-rated US general is Truscott, as he achieved army command in Italy. Eisenhower would have preferred to have him foor Overlord in preference to Patton, except that he was tied up in Anzio.
 
I believe Rommel's decisions and his own personal actions during Crusader threw away a great opportunity for a crushing Axis victory. Cruwell was determined to destroy the remnants of the British armour but Erwin decided to vacate over the wire. In that battle steady, unshowy Auchinleck outclassed flashy Rommel.

indeed his dash to wire cast away a golden opportunity to conduct 1 of 2 acations

1 a double envelopment attack against the shattered remains of XXX corps around sidi rezegh airfiel (favored by westphal, which would have severely hurt british command and control, and would have left rommel in a good position to pull back)

2. a single envelope attack against the 2nd new zealand division advancing from el duda towards tobruk, pinning them against the sea and compelling their surrender in the face of superior axis numbers (favored by bayerlin)

in the end these were lost tactical opportunities with minimal effects at the strategic level had he pulled either event off
 
I've read good things about Tomoyuki Yamashia's generalship. Especially during the Malaya and Singapore campaigns.


 
Non-butchery Marshall: Tolbukhin. Because it never gets old when I keep saying it!

In all honesty, the Red Army was a very crude tool, both by design and by necessity, and also so due to the country's inherent ideology (in which prior to the victory after the Patriotic War the army was regarded with suspicion). There was lots of hardware and even good hardware, but the training was short, always had been short, and grew even shorter during the 42/43 period. The logistics could not carry it comfortably. Winning local numerical superiority came at a huge effort.

So when someone managed to do finesse operations or take small casualties on the offensive or not butcher their way through their own forces during the entire operation with this army....well, they definitely achieved something.

There were far worse armies, of course. They typically achieved worse results. There were armies with more training and more officer traditions that also achieved worse results.

Germany had advantages in everything excluding some specific hardware. America's '44 army would be vastly ahead in every category compared to even '43 Red Army.

So it's definitely not a level playing field, every side had its own challenges.
 
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