Most over-rated WWII Leader

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.

@Gargantua:

This thread should be titled.

“Most over-rated forum poster”.

Hmmm……I think it should be.  :lol:

@Lazarus:

@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.

I believe he was Commander of land forces only, not naval or Air, and I am pretty sure Churchill did it to appease Monty

@Deaths:

I believe he was Commander of land forces only, not naval or Air, and I am pretty sure Churchill did it to appease Monty

Incorrect. It may be hard for some to swallow but  it was decided he was the best man for the job.
You should look into how difficult it was for Eisenhower to get the USAAF/RAF to work with him.  Control of them (or the Navy) was never on offer.

@Clyde85:

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?

I agree that Lazarus lacks credibility; and that his participation in this discussion has been very biased. For him, “Montgomery never suffered a reverse” means the same thing as “Montgomery was at least as good as Patton,” and anyone who thinks otherwise has succumbed to “legend.” He has used his participation in this discussion to make exaggerated or misleading claims, biased interpretations, inflammatory rhetoric, etc.

However, I have no reason to believe Lazarus is an Anglophile. I think his reason for trying to convince us that Montgomery was as good or better than Patton has nothing to do with Montgomery or Britain, and everything to do with Patton. Lazarus’s political views are very far to the left–so much so that I cannot recall a single instance in which he’s written something with which a communist would have disagreed. Patton had right wing political views, and protested the harsh treatment meted out to German civilians after the war. Lazarus has evidently decided this particular hero of the right needs to be torn down. That is why his tone has been so strident, and why he’s made so little attempt to engage in reasonable or dispassionate discussion. He gets like this whenever he defends his own political views, or attacks someone with different views.

For at least the last half page or more, he has succeeded in derailing the discussion away from big picture questions, and sidetracking it into pedantic squabbles with little bearing on the overall question. As an example, in post 70 on this thread, he mentioned that in June and July of '44, most of Germany’s Western European tank strength was allocated against the British portion of the Normandy invasion, not the American portion. But his data are relevant only for the time around Operation Goodwood. He has not shown us that Montgomery had done anything particularly creative during that invasion. If anything, Montgomery’s advance looks clumsy and inept, even taking into account the fact that he actually (gasp!) had to face a reasonably large and well-prepared enemy force.

The (very limited) gains of Goodwood were due in large part to the initial, massive aerial bombardment. The area subjected to aerial bombardment had been small, so as to allow massive concentration of firepower. Once the British had moved past that area, British divisions generally ground to a halt. Goodwood cost the British 250 - 400 tanks, as compared to 75 - 100 tanks for the Germans. Admittedly, German tanks–or at least Panthers and Tigers–were significantly better than their British counterparts. On the other hand, the Allies had complete air supremacy, and many of Germany’s tank losses were the result of aerial attacks.

Goodwood was an uncreative, brute force approach which achieved very minimal success at a high cost. Its main accomplishment was to keep German attention turned primarily towards the British force in the immediate aftermath of Goodwood, thereby facilitating the subsequent American breakout during Operation Cobra. Nothing I’ve read, either in this discussion or elsewhere, has even suggested the possibility that Montgomery did anything special during Operation Goodwood–anything beyond what one would expect of a standard-issue general of average ability. While it may be too much to expect every battle a general fights to display strategic brilliance, Lazarus has not shown us any instance in which Montgomery rose above the level of a standard-issue average general. Montgomery’s performance at the Battle of the Bulge does meet that standard; albeit to a lesser degree than Patton’s performance during that battle. But other than the Battle of the Bulge, I can’t think of any examples of Montgomery having risen above an average level of competence.

Lazarus seems intent on convincing us that Montgomery was at least Patton’s equal. He’s not going to be able to do that by objectively discussing the relative merits of the two generals; because that kind of discussion would clearly favor Patton. He seems to think his best bet is to sidetrack the discussion into debates about relative German, British, Canadian, and American force concentrations in the months immediately after the D-Day landing; with the unstated implication being that those figures somehow support the notion that Montgomery was at least as good as Patton. I advise you and the other participants in this thread to avoid getting sidetracked by that kind of stuff. Stay on topic by demanding specific examples of how Montgomery exceeded the level one would expect from an average general. Such examples will be very few and far between!