• Gonna mix things up and go with Fleet Admiral Nimitz. Handled the post-Pearl situation with calmness and determination, and above all else, took every opportunity to strike back against a numerical superior force. For his counterpart: Jisaburō Ozawa. Japans best tactical admiral in my opinion.


  • I think the Von Manstein Gudarian combo is almost impossible to defeat.

    Germany- the previously mentioned
    Soviet Union- Zhukov and Rokossovsky
    Britain- Wavell and Montgomery
    Japan- Yamashita and Kuribayashi
    USA- Bradly and Patton


  • @poloplayer15:

    I think the Von Manstein Gudarian combo is almost impossible to defeat.

    Germany- the previously mentioned
    Soviet Union- Zhukov and Rokossovsky
    Britain- Wavell and Montgomery
    Japan- Yamashita and Kuribayashi
    USA- Bradly and Patton

    Good list.

    It’s hard thinking of a good American general to pair with Patton. Ideally, you’d want Patton + the other general to come up with something better than Patton would have on his own. Or, if you’re adding someone else to the mix, that someone else should either be Patton’s subordinate, or else should be every bit as bold and innovative as Patton. Most of the time when Patton was overruled by a cautious, uncreative superior, Patton was right and the superior was wrong. Patton is the only British or American general who I’d put in the same category as Germany’s best generals.


  • The only reason I paired Patton and Bradley together is because they served together. They were a very successful duo.


  • I also think you could pair Von Manstein with Rommel. Or Gudarian with Rommel. I think these three would probably be nearly unstoppable

  • Customizer

    I’m going with most everyone else and saying Manstein and Guderian.  Hands down.


  • The late Russian war veteran Viktor Astafjev was on the Soviet-German front all the war long, 1941-1945:

    “The Germans fought much, much better in all respects! The Communists chose to shed rivers of the Russian blood literally in order to win the War. The Soviets won over Germany only by their extreme brutality and inhumanity!”

    The best WW2 Commander? “Field-Marshall Erich von Manstein, of course!”, tells the great Russian national writer:

    “He managed to push three Bolshevik armies into the Azov and Black Seas with the help of two German corps only! He was the great military genius”

    And Zhukov?

    “Honest Russian patriot? Ha! This bastard covered half Europe by the millions of the Russian guys` corpses by his extremely sadistic personal kind of war waging! He deserves neither honor, nor respect, never!”

    Taken from here: http://justice4germans.com/2012/11/12/russian-wwii-vets-say-germans-were-the-best-soldiers-in-the-world/


  • @Der:

    The late Russian war veteran Viktor Astafjev was on the Soviet-German front all the war long, 1941-1945:

    “The Germans fought much, much better in all respects! The Communists chose to shed rivers of the Russian blood literally in order to win the War. The Soviets won over Germany only by their extreme brutality and inhumanity!”

    The best WW2 Commander? “Field-Marshall Erich von Manstein, of course!”, tells the great Russian national writer:

    “He managed to push three Bolshevik armies into the Azov and Black Seas with the help of two German corps only! He was the great military genius”

    And Zhukov?

    “Honest Russian patriot? Ha! This b��t��d covered half Europe by the millions of the Russian guys` corpses by his extremely sadistic personal kind of war waging! He deserves neither honor, nor respect, never!”

    Taken from here: http://justice4germans.com/2012/11/12/russian-wwii-vets-say-germans-were-the-best-soldiers-in-the-world/

    Good post. Obviously von Mannstein was a much better general than Zhukov. That’s not a knock against Zhukov; who was a solid general in his own right. But generals like von Mannstein don’t come around very often.

    To add to what you’ve written: Germany’s prewar population was 69 million, compared to 169 million for the Soviet Union. On the other hand, a study conducted by the U.S. military indicated that German soldiers normally achieved a 3:1 exchange ratio when fighting the Soviets. However, the Soviet Union achieved a 1:1 ratio at Stalingrad; killing or capturing a million German soldiers in the process. (Over 1% of Germany’s entire prewar population!) The Soviet Union lost a million men in that battle also. But for several years the Red Army added 500,000 new men a month–a replacement rate Germany could not possibly hope to match. By the summer of '41, 80% of German men between the ages of 20 and 30 were in the military; with the remaining 20% considered too valuable to industry to release for military service.

    The role of the Western democracies in hindering the German Army should not be underestimated. 500,000 Greman soldiers were uselessly tied down in Norway, against the threat of a British or American landing. Several hundred thousand were taken prisoner in North Africa. Others were tied down in Italy or France. As early as 1942, the distraction effect of the Western democracies had become considerable.

    While Germany had the best generals of the war, von Mannstein rose above the level even of the other German generals. (Of course there were exceptions to the above rule. Some German generals weren’t much more creative than their Allied counterparts. Patton, on the other hand, would have been one of Germany’s five best generals had he been German.)


  • @KurtGodel7:

    The role of the Western democracies in hindering the German Army should not be underestimated.

    IMO the Western powers should have left Germany alone. Hitler did not want to fight England or the USA. His quarrel was with communism in the East and international jewry. But it was all about economics. England saw Germany as the “upstart kid” in Europe getting too successful and competing against their long established world trade empire.  Once England had a pretense to declare war, they were determined to destroy Germany and bring the USA in to help. Churchill rejected all of Hitler’s offers of peace. This is why the allies were still smashing German cities and starting firestorms long after it was thought necessary- they wanted to kill as many citizens as possible to eliminate their competition in the world market. In doing so Germany was completely crushed and communism was allowed to dominate much of Europe.


  • @Der:

    @KurtGodel7:

    The role of the Western democracies in hindering the German Army should not be underestimated.

    IMO the Western powers should have left Germany alone. Hitler did not want to fight England or the USA. His quarrel was with communism in the East and international jewry. But it was all about economics. England saw Germany as the “upstart kid” in Europe getting too successful and competing against their long established world trade empire.  Once England had a pretense to declare war, they were determined to destroy Germany and bring the USA in to help. Churchill rejected all of Hitler’s offers of peace. This is why the allies were still smashing German cities and starting firestorms long after it was thought necessary- they wanted to kill as many citizens as possible to eliminate their competition in the world market. In doing so Germany was completely crushed and communism was allowed to dominate much of Europe.

    So, your implication is that the western allies should have foregone entering the war because supposedly hitler didn’t want war with Britain or the US? (Mein Kamph makes it abundantly clear his plans for Britain and the US)If he didn’t want to fight the USA then why did he declare war on it? What was the US supposed to do after Germany declared war…sit on their hands? Hitler and his cronies were bad dudes no matter which way you cut it. They needed to be taken out. Furthermore, the western allies had every right to prosecute a war on Germany not even counting the atrocities that were committed. Once the atrocities became known, how could anyone consciously think there was not complicity at the very highest levels?

    The most affected areas of the allied bomber campaign was western Germany…the area NOT occupied by the communists…and also the area that received massive influxes of aid, money, and infrastructure repair from the Marshall plan. Your logic is “the allies were trying to keep the Germans down so they could spend billions on them later eventually becoming one of the worlds strongest economies?” I’m not sure that’s sound logic.

    Let’s not get into revisionist history too much and stick with the facts. The nazi ideology was not only anti Semitic, but anti anything but german essentially. Remember, 5 million of the 11 million killed in the holocaust were NOT Jews but " undesirables". He didn’t just hate communism and Jews but Slavs as well. This was quite evident by SS treatment of the Slav civilians when they were doing the “noble” duty of murdering them once the fighting had moved ahead. The war in the east became a war of annihilation BECAUSE of the brutality of the occupying Germans. Fluff it up all you want, they needed to go.


  • @Redleg13A:

    So, your implication is that the western allies should have foregone entering the war because supposedly hitler didn’t want war with Britain or the US? (Mein Kamph makes it abundantly clear his plans for Britain and the US)If he didn’t want to fight the USA then why did he declare war on it? What was the US supposed to do after Germany declared war…sit on their hands? Hitler and his cronies were bad dudes no matter which way you cut it. They needed to be taken out. Furthermore, the western allies had every right to prosecute a war on Germany not even counting the atrocities that were committed. Once the atrocities became known, how could anyone consciously think there was not complicity at the very highest levels?

    The most affected areas of the allied bomber campaign was western Germany…the area NOT occupied by the communists…and also the area that received massive influxes of aid, money, and infrastructure repair from the Marshall plan. Your logic is “the allies were trying to keep the Germans down so they could spend billions on them later eventually becoming one of the worlds strongest economies?” I’m not sure that’s sound logic.

    Let’s not get into revisionist history too much and stick with the facts. The nazi ideology was not only anti Semitic, but anti anything but german essentially. Remember, 5 million of the 11 million killed in the holocaust were NOT Jews but " undesirables". He didn’t just hate communism and Jews but Slavs as well. This was quite evident by SS treatment of the Slav civilians when they were doing the “noble” duty of murdering them once the fighting had moved ahead. The war in the east became a war of annihilation BECAUSE of the brutality of the occupying Germans. Fluff it up all you want, they needed to go.

    (Mein Kamph makes it abundantly clear his plans for Britain and the US)

    I apologize for going off-topic, but the above post requires a response. I’ve read Mein Kampf. Nowhere in it did Hitler express any desire to conquer either Britain or the U.S. He intended to get his required Lebensraum by conquering the Soviet Union. Nor were these just empty claims. Throughout Hitler’s administration, only 10% of German military spending went to the navy. The idea that Hitler intended world conquest was Allied propaganda.

    If he didn’t want to fight the USA then why did he declare war on it?

    FDR had ignored the usual restrictions associated with neutrality. American warships joined the British in search and destroy missions against German ships. FDR sent a flood of weapons shipments to Germany’s enemies in hopes of causing Germany to lose the war. Hitler’s decision to declare war was based on four beliefs: 1) the most frightening aspect of the U.S.–its massive industrial potential–had already been turned against Germany even though the U.S. was technically at peace. 2) After the Pearl Harbor attack, most of America’s naval strength would be tied down in the Pacific. It would be unable to adequately protect the ships sending weapons to the Soviet Union and Soviet allies. 3) Germany absolutely had to achieve crushing victories over the Soviet Union in the summer of '42. Sinking the American ships carrying tanks, planes, and artillery pieces to the Soviet Union might well make the difference between achieving and not achieving those victories. 4) Sooner or later the pro-war faction in the U.S. would succeed in getting America into the war; just as they’d succeeded at getting us into WWI.

    Furthermore, the western allies had every right to prosecute a war on Germany not even counting the atrocities that were committed.

    They did not. Britain and France ostensibly went to war against Germany to protect Poland from German aggression. However, France quickly broke its promise to launch a general offensive against Germany. In breaking that promise, it shattered the entire basis for Polish diplomatic and military policy, and also shattered the basis for a free Polish state. Nor was a free Poland part of the Allies’ postwar plans: it was obvious that if Germany collapsed, the Soviet Union would expand to fill the resulting void. The Allies’ food blockade of Germany resulted in the deaths of millions of Poles. Given the Allies’ cynical, brutal disregard for the Polish people and the Polish nation, it is glaringly obvious that their actual motives for going to war bore no relation to their purported motives.

    Once the atrocities became known, how could anyone consciously think there was not complicity at the very highest levels?

    As of September 1st, 1939, the government of Nazi Germany was guilty of several hundred illegal killings. Most of those killings were done by men acting without orders. As of that same date, the government of the Soviet Union was guilty of tens of millions of mass killings, including several million for the Ukrainian famine alone. The Allies’ decision to adopt pro-Soviet, anti-German foreign policies cannot be explained by any desire to prevent mass murder. Once war began, Britain and France imposed a food blockade on Germany. German officials estimated that, as a result of the food blockade, they would be unable to feed 20 - 30 million people within their own borders. The Germans allocated scarce food resources to the people they valued the most, or who seemed most valuable to the war effort.

    and also the area that received massive influxes of aid, money, and infrastructure repair from the Marshall plan.

    Anti-communist politicians implemented the Marshall Plan in 1948. From 1945 - '47, American occupation policy was driven by pro-communist politicians and their Morgenthau Plan. The intention of the Morgenthau Plan was not merely to cripple Germany economically and militarily. It was to use hunger as a weapon with which to starve millions of Germans. The Morgenthau Plan was only partially successful: it succeeded at “only” starving to death an estimated 6 million German civilians in the postwar era.


  • Thats way off topic.


  • @Imperious:

    Thats way off topic.

    In that case I’ll post something on-topic to get this thread back on track. And I’d encourage you to do the same.

    Germany’s original plan to invade France didn’t involve a plan to take Paris or knock France out of the war. Instead the plan was to take the Low Countries and Channel ports; and hope for the best from there.

    Von Mannstein, working together with Guderian, created an alternative plan–a plan many German generals tried to keep away from Hitler. In a tactical sense von Mannstein’s plan was far more imaginative and daring than the original German generals’ plan had been. But von Mannstein more clearly saw the bigger picture. He realized that if the tactical situation remained relatively static, the combined industrial potential of Britain + France + the peacetime U.S. would greatly outproduce Germany in the long run. A fairly high level of tactical risk was justified if in exchange Germany could significantly improve its strategic situation. Von Mannstein’s desire to change Germany’s strategic situation was also why he initially favored Operation Sea Lion.

    Many of Germany’s other generals didn’t seem to understand the need to accept increased risk at the tactical level in order to reduce risk at the strategic level. They were overly focused on tactics; and didn’t have von Mannstein’s ability to see the big picture. Von Mannstein’s ability to see the big picture is one of the (many) ways in which he rose far above the average level of German generals; and why he should have been put in charge of Germany’s entire war effort.


  • I know he was not a General, but Yamamoto was one of the best with his invasion plan of Hawaii.
    Great thread.


  • @suprise:

    I know he was not a General, but Yamamoto was one of the best with his invasion plan of Hawaii.
    Great thread.

    Yes, he could have been one of the best if he actually had an invasion plan of Hawaii, but he did not because of lack of trannies. He just had a plan to sink some old obsolete battleships, and he even failed in doing that. Now if he had at least bombed and destroyed the harbor facilities and the huge oil depot, then USA would get one year set back, and the war would end in 1946 and not in 45, but it was no honor in that, so he would go for the old useless battleships. Poor strategy


  • Rommel and Von Bock

  • 2024 2023 '22

    @aequitas-et-veritas

    How could you choose just two? There were so many good generals during the war. The best general of World War 2 was Rommel. Some people might fuss about Rommel’s logistics views, but that can be argued over (like how Rommel was willing to weaken his own troops to invade Malta), but hardly anyone comment about how “logistically minded” Manstein or Guderian were.

    The “Professionals Of War”:

    Erwin Rommel

    Erich Von Manstein

    Walther Model

    Tamechi Hara

    Jisaburo Ozawa

    Gunichi Mikawa

    Raymond Spurance

    William “Bull” Halsey

    Georgy Zhukov

    Chester W. Nimitz

    Ernest King

    Now, if I can choose just two? Rommel and Model or Manstein. If given good fortifications and positions, they might be able to achieve a 1:5 or even 1:10 kill ratio against the attacking forces.


  • @kurtgodel7 But Patton had no counterpart. He was a loner often competing with his “counterparts” The question begs a symbiotic relationship or pairing of two men working together.


  • @superbattleshipyamato123

    Again!

    Who do you think was the best comanding German General through WW II.?

    There had been only two Sets out there of commanding German Genarals.

    Good ones and ones …well.


  • @yavid said in In GENERALS !:

    You lost me at best general of WW2. I would have to say that honor goes to Zhukov. And to me it comes down to a simple question. What was the name of the battle Zhukov lost or his failed mission?

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Mars

    The offensive was a joint operation of the Soviet Western Front and Kalinin Front co-ordinated by Georgy Zhukov.

    The battles became known as the “Rzhev meat grinder” (“Ржевская мясорубка”) for their huge losses, particularly on the Soviet side. For many years, they were relegated to a footnote in Soviet military history.

    The Soviet forces concentrated for Operation Mars were much larger than the ones used in Operation Uranus at Stalingrad.[11] Military historian David M. Glantz believes that Operation Mars was the main Soviet offensive and that the narrative that it was intended as a “diversion attack” was a propaganda effort on the part of the Soviet government. He termed Operation Mars as the “greatest defeat of Marshal Zhukov”.

    In the unlikely event that Zhukov was correct and Mars was really a diversion, there has never been one so ambitious, so large, so clumsily executed, or so costly.— David M. Glantz

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