EPTGreat Military leaders of History? - Page 11
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nK)Duke
Germany936 Posts
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DisaFear
Australia4074 Posts
Matrim Cauthon  | ||
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Jayme
United States5866 Posts
On February 15 2011 18:55 Jibba wrote: Lee, and Southern generals in general (no pun intended), is hugely overrated and is precisely the reason the South lost. Tactically he might have been fantastic but he had no concept of strategy, which is why the South never had a shot to begin with. It makes a cute story to say the ragtag Southern Generals almost clawed themselves to victory, but truth be told, the North had far more excellent Generals and Grant was a much better Supreme Commander because he understood the big picture. To put it in SC terms, Grant was like Jaedong while Lee was like a WC3 player, microing his dying units while supply capped at 60 and at 1000/1000. This is not true at all. Winning Gettysburg would've had zero impact on the rest of the war, because the South couldn't move to Washington. It would've been a symbolic victory, cut short by their weakened (non-existant) supply chain and lack of reinforcements. The group that could've moved would've been too small, isolated and exhausted. No chance of taking a capital city. Not only that, but pushing into the North is exactly the terrible strategy I was speaking of. The South didn't lose simply because of starting conditions (history has told us time and time again that bean counting means absolutely nothing in war), it lost because it tried to push North instead of pursuing a better strategy of holding the West, where the resources were. The underdog doesn't need overwhelming victory to win a war, it simply needs to make it too costly for the more powerful side to continue. The Southern strategy was unable to do that. Okay I agree with MOST of what you said. However calling Lee overrated is ridiculous. The guy was a tactical genius that was able to work wonders when he should not have. While his aggressive tactics cost him the war in the end when the actual BATTLES occurred he was an amazing tactician. After winning all the battles he won it's no wonder that he attempted to push into the North. He realized early on that the North would win in a battle of attrition. I think you undervalue what winning at Gettysburg would have done. Most of the Union was pretty demoralized by this time because Lee kept beating the shit out of them. Generals routinely DECLINED the position of General of the Army because they didn't want to lock horns with Lee. An additional win in NORTHERN territory especially given the numbers involved in Gettysburg may have been a far more damaging loss than can be adequately guessed at this point. The north had a line of absolutely TERRIBLE generals...McClellan, Burnside, McDowell, and Hooker were all complete trash that were either way too passive or just let Lee run around them like they were morons. Grant and Sherman? They saw the bigger picture, I will give you that. Grant's bigger picture view is a big reason why Lee was never able to get a good foothold from then on. | ||
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icyF
Finland305 Posts
Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim was the Commander-in-Chief of Finland's Defence Forces, Marshal of Finland and a politician. He was Regent of Finland and the sixth President of Finland. ![[image loading]](http://i69.photobucket.com/albums/i45/Jaesun999/lulz/finland.jpg) | ||
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chenchen
United States1136 Posts
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
It didn't matter that Lee won battles, he picked the wrong battles to fight and had very few decisive victories. The Generals you point out weren't good, but they wasted Lee's time and distracted him from the rest of the war. I'll buy the morale argument, but there was still no way Lee was taking Washington. Lee's actions at Gettysburg were similar to Grant's at Cold Harbor, except Grant's was still less of a blunder. Why? Because the North could still win the war with 5:3 losses. | ||
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Jibba
United States22883 Posts
On February 15 2011 19:23 chenchen wrote: Do Americans really think that Washington was a good general, even the greatest of all time? He was a great leader, but not a very good general. He's probably most revered for turning down the position of military king, a role most people expected him to assume. | ||
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Wesso
Netherlands1245 Posts
On February 15 2011 13:56 Dalguno wrote: Probably the best book I've ever read in my life. But truly, Bean would have been better. No matter what anyone says. You need to read Ender's Shadow, it's Ender's Game from the perspective of Bean. It also shows why you are wrong  | ||
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vyyye
Sweden3917 Posts
On February 15 2011 19:23 chenchen wrote: Do Americans really think that Washington was a good general, even the greatest of all time? Similar to "What's the best (insert sport here) team?", people aren't going to answer the question, but they will tell you who is their favourite. That said I'm not sure how anyone could hold a candle to Napoleon or Alexander. While some generals might have been better tacticians these guys were conquerors as well as generals. Arguably a lot of Alexander's success was because of his fathers reforms of the Macedonian army, though Alexander's success can't be disputed. Hell, he managed to take Afghanistan in a time when there weren't gunships nor air support, fighting against natives who knew the mountains. That's a feat in itself. The fact that standard Macedonian tactics were completely useless in the terrain is another thing, a 21ft (was it 18?) sarissa isn't all too useful without a phalanx formation to use it in, and phalanxes are obviously not ideal for mountain combat. Ditto for the Macedonian cavalry, they were of limited use. Oh and he also conquered everything from Greece to India, a slightly non-trivial feat. | ||
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Fraidnot
United States824 Posts
On February 15 2011 19:28 Jibba wrote: He was a great leader, but not a very good general. He's probably most revered for turning down the position of military king, a role most people expected him to assume. Also, sort of dick. I mean who launches a surprise attack on Christmas of all days? | ||
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vyyye
Sweden3917 Posts
On February 15 2011 19:36 Fraidnot wrote: Also, sort of dick. I mean who launches a surprise attack on Christmas of all days? Americans.. no respect for tradition. Pfft. + Show Spoiler + A joke | ||
Tchado
Jordan1831 Posts
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khalid_ibn_al-Walid | ||
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VATO_Gandair
United States232 Posts
His wiki entry is pretty nuts too. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subutai This guy made war happen and was the reason Ghengis Khan was so successful. Subutai's methods were far ahead of their time and paid off in every way. | ||
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Baibars
Germany29 Posts
he came from a family with a long militaristic history a was grown up in that tradition. He was no nazi, but a patriotic soldier who did his best to serve his country. He was one of the heads behind the "Fall Gelb" operational plannings the execution of which defeated france and the low countries in just a few weeks. He was friends with General Guderian, who also was involved in the planning of "Fall Gelb", but also is considered to be the first Commander in field, who ever used advanced tank tactics, in stead of only using them as a support unit for infantry centric assaults. + Show Spoiler + ![[image loading]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5b/Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-H01757%2C_Erich_von_Manstein.jpg) After beeing asked to take part in the attempt to kill Hitler, initiated by several german officers, he denied to be a part of the plan and got kinda known for the expression: "Prussian Field Marshals do not mutiny", but he didn't do anything to hinder them to go to work on their plans. source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_von_Manstein | ||
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Jswizzy
United States791 Posts
On February 15 2011 19:37 vyyye wrote: Americans.. no respect for tradition. Pfft. + Show Spoiler + A joke A deist would | ||
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vol_
Australia1608 Posts
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Pholon
Netherlands6142 Posts
yeap. | ||
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Bellygareth
France512 Posts
- Sun Tzu - Themistocles - Alexander the Great - Demetrius of Bactria - Hannibal / Scipio Africanus - Vercingetorix / Julius Caesar - Attila - Charles Martel - Charlemagne - William the conqueror - Bertrand du Guesclin - Timur - Vlad III the impaler - Suleiman the Magnificent - Tokugawa Ieyasu - Maurice comte de Saxe - Admiral Nelson / Napoleon Bonaparte - Pancho Villa ### Modern age### - none listed : too much work | ||
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gully
13 Posts
other than that def. ender wiggin. | ||
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TALegion
United States1187 Posts
On February 15 2011 19:07 nK)Duke wrote: washington was actually the worst general of all time. QFT. He was godawful. He just lucky over and over. | ||
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