General Topics!
 

I didn't know there was such a guy, but there you go...no...a post by The Avon Lady in another thread got me thinking...about greatest generals...I mean, I know that there's a section down the boards for groundthumpers but that's mainly mech inf and armour...SO...

Who do you think was one of the greatest generals? What makes a great general? Was it Patton with what has to be my favourite quote on recon ("Go down that road until you get shot at") or was it Monty with the success in the desert but the failure at Arnhem....it doesn't even have to be World War 2...it could be Stormin' Norman, or even General Erich Von Ludendorff!

My choice? Hmmmm....it's a tough cookie...but it's probably Hans Guderian, with the way he rebuilt the German armoured forces in preparation for the Blitzkrieg which he helped create, of course...it could be argued that he was simply aping the ideas of Liddell Hart and Fuller, but it was the fact that he was able to put these ideas forward in a way that they were accepted by Hitler and the High command, instead of reworked and ignored as they were by allied forces to begin with.

Anyway....over to you guys...I would put a poll...but it's not really about who the best of the best is, but more of a discussion of the relative merits of each, and to see who people consider their 'favourites' :up:

Naturally, I am going to tell you that Takeda Shingen was one of the greatest of all time. The 'Tiger of Kai', he revolutionized the samurai cavalry, and carved out a large territory, expanding on his father's realm, which greatly contributed to the unification of Japan and the end of the Sengoku Jaidai.

Wars are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general the more he demands in maneuver, the less he demands of slaughter.

That is my definition of a great general. Which general has conquered most or least makes no difference when body counts come into play.

This is certainly true, but I was refering to the fact that by absorbing the territory of various smaller warlords, Takeda Shingen had ultimately, although unwittingly, made Japan easier to consolodate into a single nation, thus bringing an end to the 150-year, multi-sided civil war that had run in Japan. In short, Tokugawa Ieyasu had one enemy to conquer where there had been 30 before.

IMHO, George S. Patton. A little nuts, definitely insubordinate, but he could do things that no other general could/would even attempt. The man was a military genius, able to do the supposedly impossible, charging 60 miles in two days to the 101st's rescue at Bastogne, and punching through the Germans like a hot knife through butter. Given the gasoline and supplies necessary, he probably could have even shortened the war, had he been allowed to proceed. He even foresaw the Soviet threat at the end of World War II (although I suppose one could argue that he contributed to the feelings of the Soviets as a threat).

Napoleon. He is the true father of mobile warfare. He out-thought his enemies in advance, and moved faster on the battlefield and on the continent than anyone else, shifting the centre of gravity around so virtuously that he could bring a maximum momentum and force onto the enemy's weakest points, even against numerically superior armies. Without him, no Fuller, no Hart, no deGaulle, no Guderian, no Patton. No Blitzkrieg. Modern warfare's theory goes back to him in a relatively straight line.

Guderian and Patton share 2nd place.

Genghis Khan

Genghis Khan conquered more land than anyone in human history.

Very hard to pin down but I'd vote fore Alexander. Of course George S. Patton was right by his side.

Sun Tzu has to be up there.

"If you search the annals of military history, you will not find a greater general than Ulysses S. Grant"-Robert E. Lee

The only problem with this assessment is that it ignores the last 141 years of history.

Well, he was Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, but...:|\\

-->Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim<--

There was never actually a person or general named Sun Tzu. He's a myth.

Edit:
Take this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Tzu for example.
As great as Sun_Tzu was wouldn't more then one person know of him? I read a report many years ago that the Art Of War was actually written by a group of people. No I can't remember it but I'll try and hunt it down. Think about it, if this guy was that great wouldn't he be known as a great general and fighter with proof of battles won etc? There is nothing but one guys word.

I'd have to say George Washington. Building the Continental army from scratch, keeping it together through enormous adversity and emerging victorious over the best military the world had known to that point says a lot for the man.

Of course, no man in the 101st would ever agree to "having to be rescued." ;)

::Holds up hands in mock surrender:: OK...true enough.