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To: Vicomte13

Heinz Guderian is probably the greatest tactical leader of the 20th Century. Rommel and Patton were probably the best at the corps and army level, but both failed to appreciate the logistics that would have carried them to true dominance on the battlefield. Omar Bradley did appreciate that part of war, but he lacked the genius of Patton.

Yes, he was an amazing general, but he never had the extra chutzpah that George Patton managed to display. Ike didn't, either. Only Doug MacArthur came close to him in that area. I'm not a big Mac fan, but he was an awesome general.


698 posted on 12/22/2005 6:57:19 PM PST by ABG(anybody but Gore) (If Liberals had as much passion for our troops as they do for Tookie, the war would be over...)
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To: ABG(anybody but Gore)

It's so difficult to judge with Guderian, because he was removed from command just at the moment when his particular talents could have been the margin of victory in Russia.

When I consider Poland, France 1940, and the 1941 Russian Campaign, I see tactical and strategic brilliance, and an understanding of how to get ENOUGH supply and support to do what needed to be done. He ran out of autumn before he got to Moscow, but he did so undefeated. It is speculative to think what would have happened had he not been removed from command, and had Hitler trusted him to continue the drive.

Fortunately for the world, that didn't happen.

I disagree on MacArthur. I think MacArthur got caught with his pants down twice, once in the Philippines and once in Korea, and lost one and a half armies in the process. I would rate him as mediocre, and I think that his character flaw of overweening arrogance was the reason for it.

Likewise, I downgrade Halsey. He drove through two hurricanes. It was stupid. He should have learnt the first time. So should MacArthur.

By contrast, I think Eisenhower was the greatest American general in history. What he had to do in Europe was incredibly hard. Nobody has ever commanded an army that big. Nobody has ever commanded an army that diverse, comprised of that many different allies, with that many different languages and attitudes. Nobody has ever had to conduct an amphibious operation like that, against enemies that strong and dangerous. Yes, Eisenhower had immense power at his command, but he used it very efficiently and carefully. He did not squander lives, but was not remotely timid, like McClellan in an earlier period. He lacked Patton's and MacArthur's EGO, yes. I would say that MacArthur's ego was oversized. Patton? Yes, Patton was very good. I wonder, though, if Patton was capable of supreme command? Did he have the grand strategic vision of Eisenhower? Was he capable of the DIPLOMACY of alliance-based warfare? I don't know. Probably. Professional men often rise to the office. Eisenhower is in a different league from Patton, in my book, and when I contrast Eisenhower with MacArthur, the contrasts are all favorable, again in my opinion. I think that the Pacific theatre equivalent of Eisenhower, in the sense of having the grand strategic picture, a mastery of the details of command, but no appreciable ego to get in the way of execution (Patton's problem, to an extent, and especially MacArthur's problem) was really Chester von Nimitz. America has had many great naval heroes in single combats or battles. Perry's victory in Lake Erie, for example, was the most decisive and important victory on any side in the War of 1812. It guaranteed that the Northwest would be American, and not British. But America has had only a handful of great admirals in the grand strategic sense.
I would say that Farragut and Nimitz would be the only two who stand on a separate plane, but that Nimitz stands pre-eminent because of the nature of the enemy he had to fight.

The most powerful naval force in history, except one, was the Japanese Imperial Navy. It was also the best trained. Nimitz beat it. Japan's Navy was not akin to the Germans in World War I versus the British, or the French navy versus the British, nor the British Navy versus the Spanish Armada. It was beyond compare.
A nautical race, moreso than the Americans. The Japanese were akin to the British, but much more disciplined at sea, and much more powerful too, than the Royal Navy ever was. The Imperial Japanese Navy sent the Royal Navy ships in the East to the bottom, and would have finished off the Home Fleet too, had the Japanese been in the British home waters. And the Japanese top naval commanders were brilliant and very daring. They fought well at night, much better than the Americans (until radar levelled the field).
The truth is that, after Pearl Harbor, it took a miracle for the Americans to be able to climb out of their naval defeat. The miracle came quickly: Midway. But Midway was perilous. Much more perilous than, say, Wellington's "Near-run thing" at Waterloo, or Jutland or Gettysburg. They were decided over the course of hours or days. Midway was decided by a gap of perhaps 20 minutes. Midway could have easily been a Japanese decisive victory from which the United States might have not recovered.
Instead, the opposite was true, but only by the skin of the teeth.
When one considers the foe that Nimitz faced, it enhances his stature. Of course it was Spruance who won Midway, but it was Nimitz who put him there to do it.


701 posted on 12/22/2005 7:39:21 PM PST by Vicomte13 (Et alors?)
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