Your Favourite Military Commander

Speaking of tank commanders, have you heard what British ones had to have every day? 'Tiffin time!' They had to have their tea and biscuits or else they went into a rage.

In my opinion, now that you mentioned British generals, most of them were worthless. Auchinkleck wasn't that bad, but the desert war proved too much for him. Montgomery's successes, Africa and Sicily (Normandy was all Eisenhower's merit), turned him into some kind of legend. He was WAY too overrated. Wavell, meh. The only competent naval commander was Admiral Cunningham. Air, Portal was OK. On land, I love a British general named Dempsey, who participated in Italy and then in Normandy. Finally, there's Admiral Mountbatten. He was a pretty decent naval commander, but what he is most remembered for is SOE. He was great at that. Oh, and there's also Brook, who was kind of like the commander of all British forces. A mastermind, but in the shadow of Churchill. No one really knows him. I don't think there is any other British general worth mentioning, except maybe Alexander. Did some good things in Italy too.

I was reading this in a book named Killing Rommel, and it said more or less this: "The problem with the British Army is that it's attacks are too much like the Charge of the Light Brigade. Too much heroism and little efficiency. The German Afrika Korps has superior weaponry, superior commanders and superior tactics. Rommel is the mastermind behind our defeat, but every single one of the men of the Afrika Korps is a little Rommel. When they see a weakness, they exploit it perfectly." That is why the Afrika Korps were superior on the battlefield.

However, that individual courage and heroism the British had enabled them to create commandos and be pretty good at it. Rommel once said, referring to the LRDG and the SAS, "They have caused more damage to me that any other single British unit during this war." Another German officer referring to the LRDG, "Chapman, [name of the main character in Killing Rommel] I have to tell you something. We Germans could never do what you do. Going around in endless dunes with nothing but sand in sight. We like to go in groups and organized. You British like to think of yourselves as amateurs in the art of war, but you have more individual determination than any of us."

P.S. I mean no offense to British citizens. I really do admire Churchill, and what the British did during the first half of the war is admirable.

Just the first half? They were pretty valiant throughout. The Russians were braver, but the Brits were great.

Butter Ball Bill wrote:

Just the first half? They were pretty valiant throughout. The Russians were braver,

1. I worded it wrong. The Brits were pretty brave throughout the war, yes, but only played a decisive role in the first half. As soon as the U.S.A. got in, Britain lost importance.
2. The Russians were not braver. They were forced to go to war (the Brits were too, but they were willing), and barely with any weapons, they charged German MG nests. I don't call that bravery. I call that unnecessary stupidity (no offense meant). Russians took obscene casualties during the war (23 million is a conservative estimate), and the only things that saved them were the size of their country and their endless manpower.

No, the basic Russian strategy won the war for Russia. They defeated Hitler the same way they defeated Napoleon. They ran away, gathered their friends, let Germany suffer through winter and counter attacked soon after. Granted, massive numbers did do most of the work but even if they had been pushed back again, the Germans would've been killed off by the winter.

The Russians were brave. Stupidly brave, yes. Just stupid, no. I would like to see you charge an MG nest that has one of the most fanatic mo fo's in history manning it. I will stick up for the Russians 'til the end. I admire Communist Russia very much and wish the Soviet Union was still about.

Well, you have just said you admire the regime that murdered about 30 million people, and this is not only war casualties.

Yup. But it brought Russia from the third world to the first. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Anyway, it wasn't communism, it was Stalin with his gulag's and such.

John J Pershing there would be no Patton with out him or Bradly or many of the other generals the usa had in WWII.

He hand picked the generals that lead the war.

He lead the Us forces in WWI

his impact on the US military from WWI to the Korean war is not truly seen by most he is the true mastermind behind all US military victories in that time period.

Emperor Lelouch wrote:

itsDeems wrote:

Agreed, especially because the Nazis and the Soviets were terrified of him.So much so, I believe there is now a theory and book that Stalin had Patton killed.

......this isn't true.... when German Generals were asked what they think about General Patton their answer was.."Who?"

However, some of the things you say are good revelations on history - and some of them, to me, and I mean this respectfully (and am certain I do this myself with my own views at times) seem to perhaps allow your preferences to alter historic reality.

That being stated, on Patton:

German General Gunther Blumentritt: We regarded general Patton extremely highly as the most aggressive panzer-general of the Allies.

Heinz Guderian, the Wehrmacht’s foremost practitioner of Blitzkrieg: I hear much about General Patton and he conducted a good campaign. From the standpoint of a tank specialist, I must congratulate him on his victory since he acted as I would have done had I been in his place.

Martin Blumenson, Patton biographer: [Patton was a] hero even to professional German officers who respected him as the adversary they most feared in battle

And so far as the Soviets...well, they assassinated him.

Butter Ball Bill wrote:

Yup. But it brought Russia from the third world to the first. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

Anyway, it wasn't communism, it was Stalin with his gulag's and such.

However, I am pro-union, pro-worker, and typically a moderate statist.

In the U.S. I am either a moderate Democrat, or a pro-labor Republican depending on the election.

I don't think I am a communist.

I love the idea of everyone being equal, everyone earning as much as each other but I hate that businesses are owned by the government and no one can really be 'special' and the fact that communism disapproves of religion(unless they are taking heavy casualties in war). Communism would probably still be in some counties today if people didn't pretend it was so bad. A edited version of it would be much better. You could call it itsDeemism if you do make it up and you could easily make a new nation for yourself, you just need to make sure you have done a few hings first -> http://www.wikihow.com/Start-Your-Own-Country

Butter Ball Bill wrote:

Anyway, it wasn't communism, it was Stalin with his gulag's and such.

Butter Ball Bill wrote:

I love the idea of everyone being equal, everyone earning as much as each other but I hate that businesses are owned by the government and no one can really be 'special' and the fact that communism disapproves of religion(unless they are taking heavy casualties in war). Communism would probably still be in some counties today if people didn't pretend it was so bad. A edited version of it would be much better

1. It doesn't consider how humans corrupt everything. Humans always want to be better than their neighbour so they want to get more money by any means.
2. It doens't have individual incentives like capitalism does. So the person that barely works gets the same money as the person that does. So then the person that does work, now works less, meaning less efficiency, meaning the state gets poorer.

And now let me quote my favourite 20th century person, Sir Winston Churchill

"The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries". -Sir Winston Churchill

"You don't make the poor richer by making the rich poorer."-Sir Winston Churchill

I think you mean more wrong(I know you're learning English)

I suggest counters to the problems of communism -> Semi-privatisation of companies meaning that someone can make a company and if it starts to fail someone can jump in and help you rather than your company collapsing. You can change the nature of humans. I only know of one case where communists tried to be better than each other is Trotsky and Stalin. That could've been solved with an election, held every ten or so years.

Thanks for the correction, still learning.

Look at China today. It may be a superpower, but many Chinese are extremely poor. The USSR was an epic fail. Its economy was very weak, and tried to compensate it by mounting spy operations to crash Wall Street. They failed. The USSR was corruption, with leaders earning a lot of money and people being poor. Another thing is that as communism's ultimate target is making everybody equal, it means the rich will have to get poorer. This will lead to the rich exiting the country, meaning less money and less foreign investments. And, finally, as I said before, its ultimate aim is making people equal, but people are NOT the same. You like anime, I like comics, you are American, I am Spanish, and so on...

P.S. Read the Wikipedia article of this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Black_Book_of_Communism But please read the whole article.

P.S.2 If you see any other errors in my posts, please tell me. I have to get better at English and perfect it. Thanks!

I'm Irish...

Can I change my name so I can put a fada over the 'i'?

Communism is the perfect utopian view of the economy, the reason it fail was because humans was not perfect we never were, we are not ready for utopia and we never be.

And China is the worlds second largest economy, and in reality there semi-communist but not full blown communist.

The concept of communism is rather complex, but we're going off topic, just to make sure you get it.

WERE GOING OFF TOPIC.

Agreed. I like Genghis Khan because he was able to defeat the enemy at high speed on a horse while aiming a bow. Pretty impressive.

I like Patton because of his 'Attack, attack, attack' tactics, and because he got murdered because he was right. He hated the Soviets from the beginnning. That is one thing for which I don't like Roosevelt.He actually thought he could be friends with the Soviets, and the Iron Curtain is partially his fault.

P.S. I thought you were American. Sorry Bill.

No problem. I am told I sound like an American too.

Why don't you like the Soviets? They were pretty cool and they made some awesome tech.

I don't like Communism. I hate it.