Most over-rated WWII Leader

@Col.:

I’ll think you’ll find that he as the only command at D-Day who failed to get off the beach and blame their problems on logistical failures.

Sorry but that is just plain wrong. Every single beach failed to  reach its D-Day ‘phase line’ Every beach.
If you want we can talk about the one beach where progress was so bad there were serious  thought given to  re-embark and  abandon it.
Can you guess which one it was……

@Clyde85:

US forces out numbered British force by more then 4 to 1 by the end OF THE WAR. The US had 72 divisions in the field by the end of the war out of a total of 85 allied divisions, a factor of more then 4 to 1.

And yet the numbers say the manpower totals are 1.5 million to 3  million?

@Clyde85:

US forces out numbered British force by more then 4 to 1 by the end OF THE WAR.

Note the dates I gave. May and June 1945.
That, I believe, is THE END OF THE WAR

@Clyde85:

Also, I don’t think you should get to count Canadian forces under the British total as they were a separate and equal power in the war. Canada had its own Army and its own indigenous commanders who were raised and trained in Canada. Men like Guy Simonds, Harry Crerar, Andrew MaNaughton, and the men of the first Canadian Army were the one who led the breakout from Normandy and closed the Falaise pocket, not Monty.

Ah but you said earlier  Monty ‘failed’ to close the gap. Now you backtrack and say the Canadians were responsible?
What made you change your  line of argument?
I might add that the 2 Divisions chosen to ‘close the gap’ were relative newcomers and ony one  was Canadian. I leave you to find  out the nationality of the other……

@Clyde85:

And I think this really proves it. Here is an army and a group of commanders that gets over shadowed by the “British” war effort and grouped in with what Monty did, when in reality they should be recognized for their individual contributions to the war as Canadians not British and not Monty.

OK now point me to a US source that seperates out the achievements of the French Armoured Division as distinct from the US success.

Perhaps you could also give me the force ratio for Bradley during Cobra.
If Monty is said to have only won because he vastly outnumbered the
Germans then it can  be said Bradley and Patton had greatly superior advantages (than Montgomery) when they attacked

@Clyde85:

The US had 72 divisions in the field by the end of the war out of a total of 85 allied divisions, a factor of more then 4 to 1……you can try again now

Wrong.

The reality can be seen here

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-Supreme/USA-E-Supreme-D.html

US 61

UK 17
Can  5

F/French 7

These figures are for Divisions only. For the UK/Can this  excludes 6 Armored Brigades. For the uninitiated an Armoured Brigade was the tank strength of an Armoured Division and they  do not appear on the Divisional  headcount.
Furthermore one of the UK Armoured Divisions (79th) was a specialised Unit that had 3 times the tank units of an ordinary Armoured Division.
It is obvious now that an attempt to count Divisions only is a partial counting method that undercounts the Commonwealth contribution.

@Clyde85:

The US had 72 divisions in the field by the end of the war out of a total of 85 allied divisions, a factor of more then 4 to 1……you can try again now

The reality can be seen here

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-Supreme/USA-E-Supreme-D.html

US 61

UK 17
Can  5

F/French 7

These figures are for Divisions only. For the UK/Can this  excludes 6 Armored Brigades. For the uninitiated an Armoured Brigade was the tank strength of an Armoured Division and they  do not appear on the Divisional  headcount.
Furthermore one of the UK Armoured Divisions (79th) was a specialised Unit that had 3 times the tank units of an ordinary Armoured Division.
It is obvious now that an attempt to count Divisions only is a partial counting method that undercounts the Commonwealth contribution.

Victory in the West Volume II of the Official British History of the Second World War by Major LF Ellis, Appendix VII

Allied strength on April 30th 1945 was:-

British: Army 835,208 Naval 16,221* Air Force 460,000** Total 1,311,429
Canadian: Army 183,421 Naval 0 Air Force34,000** Total 217,421
Australian/NZ: Army 0 Naval 0 Air Force 12,500** Total 12,500
American: Army 2,618,023 Naval 7,035 Air Force 447,482*** Total 3,072,540
French: Army 413,144 Naval 0 Air Force 24,000**** Total 437,144
Others: Army 34,518 Naval 0 Air Force 15,500** Total 50,018
Totals: Army 4,084,314 Naval 23,256 Air Force 993,482 Grand Total 5,101,052

*RN & USN in the campaign area
**RAF: Bomber Command, Fighter Command, Coastal Command (16,18 & 19 Groups), 2nd Tactical AF and Special Groups (38 & 46)
***USAAF: 8th & 9th AF, First (Provisional) Tactical AF and IX Troop Carrier Command
****First French Air Corps, French Western Air Forces and French Sqns in RAF commands
*****Others relates to contingents from Belgium, Czechoslovakia, Netherlands, Norway and Polish

SNORE

Sleeps through this part of the class

Yeah sure, if you want to include the ENTIRE armed forces of Britain in Europe, but im sorry, there is no way in hell that your figures are correct. The whole reason Monty was dropped as over all commander in Europe was because US forces outnumbered British forces by. As I said before 72 out of the 85 divisions in Europe by the surrender in 1945 were American and not British.

@Lazarus:

Victory in the West Volume II of the Official British History of the Second World War by Major LF Ellis, Appendix VII

This is your source? LOL bwahahahahah! Yes im sure this is a very reliable source as the British would never fudge some numbers to appease their sense of national pride  :roll:

@Clyde85:

Yeah sure, if you want to include the ENTIRE armed forces of Britain in Europe, but im sorry, there is no way in hell that your figures are correct. The whole reason Monty was dropped as over all commander in Europe was because US forces outnumbered British forces by. As I said before 72 out of the 85 divisions in Europe by the surrender in 1945 were American and not British.

You can repeat your fabrications as often as you want but it will never change the actual numbers.
Your claim there were 72 US Divisions in NW Europe is bogus.
The Commonwealth numbers are the exact comparison to the US numbers.
It is incorrect to say it is the total of the entire Commonwealth Armed Forces.
Your claim is a falsification.
The figures I gave you come from a book entitled
US Army In WW2. The European Theatre Of Operations. The Supreme Command.  and are in  Appendix D,
Forces Under SHAEF, 1944-45.
The full citation  for the printing is:
CMH Publication 7-1
OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF MILITARY HISTORY
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
WASHINGTON, D.C., 1954
Library of Congress Catalog Number: 53-61717
For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office
Washington, D.C., 20402
Nothing to do with appease their(British) sense of national pride

@Clyde85:

This is your source? LOL bwahahahahah! Yes im sure this is a very reliable source as the British would never fudge some numbers to appease their sense of national pride  :

bwahahahahah to you because I gave you 2 sources. The official British numbers and the official US ones.
It is up to you which ones you want to use but they both blow apart your bogus numbers.

So far in this thread every ‘source/number’ you give turns out to be wrong!

Just in case you missed it here are the US figures

US Forces in Europe
Infantry Divisions:    42
1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 8th, 9th, 26th, 28th, 29th,
30th, 35th, 36th, 42d, 44th, 45th, 63d, 65th, 66th, 69th,
70th, 71st, 75th, 76th, 78th, 79th, 80th, 83d, 84th, 86th,
87th, 89th, 90th, 94th, 95th, 97th, 99th, 100th, 102d, 103d,
104th, 106th
Armored Divisions:  15
2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, 13th, 14th, 16th, 20th
Airborne Divisions:    4 
13th, 17th, 82d, 101st

From:

http://www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar/USA/USA-E-Supreme/USA-E-Supreme-D.html

Please use them to confirm your earlier claim:

@Clyde85:

The US had 72 divisions in the field by the end of the warout of a total of 85 allied divisions, a factor of more then 4 to 1

The claim Monty was ‘dropped’ is frankly bizzare and betrays a complete lack of any real understanding. Eisenhower was always the overall Commander but he (wisely) allowed the most experienced man run the battle on his behalf. A wise move as it turned out!

Lazarus,
You have to realize that you have zero credibility at this point and with every post you just keeping digging the “i’m a jingoistic Anglophile” hole you’ve put yourself in alittle bit deeper. You came here to wave the union jack and try to uphold the honor of your golden boy Montgomery, but have only made yourself look silly.

I am going to ignore any further posts you put here about how glorious the bold and invincible Montgomery was and How the British had the biggest army in NW Europe and single handedly won the war, God Save the Queen!

So what are some over-rated Axis commanders?

This topic is as dangerous as politics. I think I got into one of these arguments a few pages back for hatin’ on MacArthur.

@Clyde85:

with every post you just keeping digging the “i’m a jingoistic Anglophile” hole you’ve put yourself in alittle bit deeper……God Save the Queen!

As usual you make a collosal error. Would it make any difference if I told you I am Irish?

@Clyde85:

I am going to ignore any further posts you put here

A wise move. So far you have not managed to find a single fact that  confirms any of your claims.  Forced to use  Wiki and then  misrepresent the number for  POW’s you found as KIA. totals you lack the grace to admit  the data I posted shows your claim of 72 US Divisions in Europe is wrong.  I would say your defeat is of the same magnitude that befell the Germans in the summer of 1944.
I hold you no malice as I watch you running for the hills…… toodle pip old bean!

@trackmagic:

This topic is as dangerous as politics. I think I got into one of these arguments a few pages back for hatin’ on MacArthur.

Yeah probably, but MacArthur was an over rated nitwit, and his pride caused the deaths on numerous GI’s and wasted time. So you’d be right to claim he was over rated.

But I think we should switch focus from the allied camp and talk about Axis commanders

@Lazarus:

As usual you make a collosal error. Would it make any difference if I told you I am Irish?

Actually yes, yes it would, as so am I, so this paints this conflict in a whole new light, doesn’t it? :-D

but lets not dwell on what is past and move to something else, like the Axis!

I’ll start, Yamashita or Yamamoto, which was more over rated?

Monty, no doubt. Worst is that he overrated himself so much…

@alexgreat:

Monty, no doubt. Worst is that he overrated himself so much…

This raises an interesting angle to this debate: the subject of which WWII leaders were most prone to overrating themselves.  Quite a few candidates come to mind – one of these being Hitler, who would often rant that he knew more about war than his own generals.

@CWO:

This raises an interesting angle to this debate: the subject of which WWII leaders were most prone to overrating themselves.

This is a good question and allow me to expand on it, I think that overall, the Germans, are somewhat over rated. Now before you all start throwing rotten fruit hear me out. When we talk of the great German successes of the Early war period (1939-41) I think we (collectively i’m guilty of this too) forget who they were fighting. The initials targets of the German Blitzkrieg, Poland, Denmark, Norway, and France. Not exactly what I would call a group of Global heavy weights if you know what I mean. Look what happened as the war progressed and the countries Germany took on got bigger, with more resources, well all of a sudden the Germans find themselves unable to makes those spectacular successes from the early war happen again. I mean no one really talks about the British success against the Italians in the 1940-41 period against Italians in north Africa because beating up on the Italians isn’t seen as anything that should be hard to do. I’m kind of reminded of a Dr. Seuss comic from the war which showed a caricature of Mussolini plucking the wings off of butterflies that had the names of countries like Ethiopia and and Albania written on them, but off to the side a giant pair of bugs with the words UK and US written on them are looking at him and laughing.

Now I know that under closer scrutiny this kinda falls apart, especially when you look at the early Russian campaign, but it is worth thinking about. Did these easy victories, which when looked at in hindsight is no surprise the Germans won,  lead the Germans into a false sense of superiority?

@Clyde85:

Did these easy victories, which when looked at in hindsight is no surprise the Germans won, lead the Germans into a false sense of superiority? Â

This question connects nicely to the example I gave previously.  I’m not sure if Germany’s early victories gave the Wehrmacht a false sense of superiority, but those victories certainly allowed Hitler to claim that he had been right in his strategic goals of campaigning against Poland and the Anglo-French alliance which had pledged to guarantee Polish neutrality – and that the generals who had been against the idea had been wrong.  As Laurence Olivier’s narration put it in the series The World at War: “Their doubts had been answered; their opposition could be discounted.”  This gave Hitler increased leverage on the German high command when he turned his sights on the even bigger objective of the USSR.

Montgomery, imagine if he would have been supreme commander……scary

@Deaths:

Montgomery, imagine if he would have been supreme commander……scary

He was ‘supreme commander’ of the forces in Normandy  from June 6th to August 31st.
Not a lot of people seem to know that.

This thread should be titled.

“Most over-rated forum poster”.

To which I, or in reference to this thread, Lazarus/Clyde would likely be a candidates for ‘supreme commander’ between May 1st and May 7th 2012.