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On February 15 2011 18:55 Jibba wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 13:46 ZlaSHeR wrote:
Robert E. Lee over G Dub any day.
Given that Lee has next to nothing, a spread out force and shitty resources and everything to deal with, he was clearly the best general in American history, even if his side lost. 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. Show nested quote +All he had to do was scatter the union army and he would be able to march into Washington and secure victory. 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.
This post leads me to believe that you misunderstand the civil war and the political situation the country was in from the start of the war.
It's one thing to say the southern generals are overrated but it's another to say they were inferior to the northern ones (which is just absurd).
That analogy isn't correct either. A more accurate analogy would be Lee being Jaedong and his opponent being some C+ player (whichever of the many failed Union generals you would choose) on ICCUP who has the handicap of being able to field a 600 supply army, starts with all upgrades/research, an extra command center and 12 more workers. There was nothing genius or spectacular about what grant did in the sense that there's nothing genius or spectacular about an army of 60 dragoons with upgrades being able to slowly defeat an army of 40 dragoons without upgrades. What is spectacular and brilliant is the commander who can time and time again defeat the upgraded army of 60 dragoons with 40 un-upgraded dragoons.
Also, if you seem to think that nothing would have happened had the south won Gettysburg, you drastically underestimate the north's unified resolve to win, even fight the war. Lincoln did many unconstitutional things in his time and basically is the closest any president has ever come to a dictator in US History. Had the south actually won Gettysburg and gone on to capture D.C., there are so many things that could have chain-reacted from such a significant event that the only conclusion to make would be southern independence. In fact, there are so many tiny events that could have gone differently, ranging from the USA almost firing on British trade ships which would have drastically increased the chances of if not causing UK intervention, to an enlist failing to obey orders and not effectively burning Lee's battle plans for Antietam (which makes it all the more funny that the north couldn't even secure victory with the enemies battle plans, only a draw)
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On February 15 2011 23:07 Sm3agol wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 22:55 Aresien wrote:On February 15 2011 22:33 Sm3agol wrote:
And Julius Ceasar is definitely not really a candidate either. Not only were his armies far superior technically to his opponents, but he outnumbered them much of the time as well. Not to say he's bad, I've read his books, he was a very competent general, but not all-time great. He wasn't innovative, he didn't have many crushing tactical victories, he just won, and won solidly vs enemies he should have beaten. I'm sorry, but simply from the battle of Alesia I disagree. His use of fortifications was brilliant. That wasn't it though, his ability as a general really showed when he jumped in to the thick of battle which gave his troops the morale to fight on. Super outnumbered too, over double. You just can't play that down. Well....as i said, no, I'm not calling him terrible. But for crying aloud he was fighting a barbarian army that still used a primitive phalanx half the time, vs his highly trained and modern legions. And jumping into the thick of battle doesn't qualify you as a great tactician/general. Ceasar an all-time great leader? Sure. All-time great General? Maybe, but, imo not top 5 or even 10. His army gave him too much of an advantage for me to say that. Fair? Maybe not, but imo, a general who proves he can win vs better equipped and numerically superior forces is better than one who merely uses his armies great advantages to its best potential. And there are too many proven generals who won with less for me to put Ceasar up there as an all time top 5/10 general.
He also fought against non-barbarians and against opponents that had bigger armies than him.
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On February 15 2011 23:33 Mentalizor wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 23:26 StorkHwaiting wrote:On February 15 2011 15:14 Adaptation wrote:
1 Temujin (Genghis Khan) 1167 1227
2 Alexander the Great 356 BC 323 BC
3 Napoleon Bonaparte 1769 1821
4 Hannibal Barca 241 BC 183 BC
5 Timur 1336 1405
6 Khalid ibn al-Walid 584 642
7 Aleksandr Suvorov 1729 1800
8 Jan Žižka 1370 1424
9 Belisarius 505 565
10 John Churchill (Duke of Marlborough) 1650 1722
11 Subotai 1176 1248
12 Gustav II Adolf 1594 1632
13 Scipio Africanus the Older 237 BC 183 BC
14 Gaius Julius Caesar 100 BC 44 BC
15 Eugene of Savoy 1663 1736
16 Henri de La Tour d'Auvergne de Turenne 1611 1675
17 Heraclius 575 641
18 Sir Arthur Wellesley (Duke of Wellington 1769 1852
19 Frederick II of Prussia 1712 1786
20 Maurice, comte de Saxe 1696 1750
This is a subject i know A LOT of, and it almost always comes down to ''what is best''. I can tell you that its important to always look at strategics as well as tactics. The famous saying ''amateurs study tactics, while professional study logisitics'' is very true. You cannot just look at actual battle. Take for example Frederick II of prussia. His country fought austria, sweden,russia and france all at the same time(thats getting attacked north,south,east,west!). Although he fought brilliantly in these battles, it was poor grand strategy by him and in the end the war got him 0 result and back where he started, minus all the men he lost during the war.
You also have to take in account the amount of control one has on his own fate. Im sure Hannibal would have not fought scipio africanus in his last battle but he was forced and he lost.
Other things to take in account is siege warfare, strategics, grand strategy. Its more then just battlefield tactics. I actually have a top 100 list and a rating guide that explains my reasoning.
Edit: in terms of admiral, i can tell you that its clearly Yi-sun-sin of... KOREA!
Yes the ancestor of slayer boxer and Oops reach! He's the only guy i put ahead of Admiral Nelson. Take time to research what this guy has done and believe me, he's your no.1 admiral. Way Way ahead of his time. You know a lot yet you don't have a single Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or Southeast Asian general in there. Hmm... You've got a point. But we're almost exclusevely tought European/American/Egyptian/(South American) history, hence this is what shaped our culture and such. Obviously, I know about Genghis Khan, but as a European the roman-, the napoleon-, the british- and the nazi-empires has had a much greater effect - hence we know more about it. I'd love to get to know more asian warlords. Especially since I played Shogun Total War, I think japanese wars are thrilling. Just never had any education on this matter.
Tang Taizong (Also known as Li Shimin) was a brilliant Chinese general, basically the founder of the Tang Dynasty.
Mao Zedong should go without saying.
Gao Xianzhi - Fought a lot of battles in Central Asia. Lost Battle of Talas Field, but otherwise had a brilliant career.
Oda Nobunaga - revolutionized gunpowder warfare in Japan. Lots of interesting innovations in massed firepower vs cavalry.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi - Former peasant, who became right hand man of Nobunaga and became a great general.
There are obviously quite a few more, but those stand out in my mind right away. There have been tons of war all over the world though, and some of the largest armies, with the most demanding logistics, have been fought in Asia. The Chinese were routinely fielding armies 4-5x the size of anything Rome could muster in the BC era.
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On February 15 2011 23:54 WhiteDog wrote:Haha, thanks, I'm so tired of this idea that French always lost. In fact everybody is flaming us because we have "the most interesting war history than any other country in the world".
China is 5000 years old, no way France could have the most interesting war history than any other country in the world.
I hope I am romanianing here I missed a possible sarcasm in that website.
lol (<-- no, thats not a french with his hands up  )
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On February 15 2011 13:53 Shrinky Dink wrote:+ Show Spoiler +Seriously though, if you look past the horrors he did, he was actually an excellent speaker, with his war machine being responsible for some of the greatest advances in technology and science, and recovered his country's extreme deficit in its economy at the time (following the Treaty of Versailles). I know it's obviously that he wasn't the greatest of all time, but IMO he is very underrated as a leader for his country since everyone looks at his cons.
nope.
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On February 16 2011 00:03 fabiano wrote:
China is 5000 years old, no way France could have the most interesting war history than any other country in the world.
I guess you're confusing China with Egypt here. Egypt was a powerhouse a thousand years before China even started crawling out as a tiny country.
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On February 15 2011 23:59 StorkHwaiting wrote:
Tang Taizong (Also known as Li Shimin) was a brilliant Chinese general, basically the founder of the Tang Dynasty.
Mao Zedong should go without saying.
Gao Xianzhi - Fought a lot of battles in Central Asia. Lost Battle of Talas Field, but otherwise had a brilliant career.
Oda Nobunaga - revolutionized gunpowder warfare in Japan. Lots of interesting innovations in massed firepower vs cavalry.
Toyotomi Hideyoshi - Former peasant, who became right hand man of Nobunaga and became a great general.
There are obviously quite a few more, but those stand out in my mind right away. There have been tons of war all over the world though, and some of the largest armies, with the most demanding logistics, have been fought in Asia. The Chinese were routinely fielding armies 4-5x the size of anything Rome could muster in the BC era.
I would love to see the quote for that Rome vs China Army size, because that seems highly improbable. Rome had higher population and was much wealthier state.
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On February 16 2011 00:07 Manit0u wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2011 00:03 fabiano wrote:
China is 5000 years old, no way France could have the most interesting war history than any other country in the world.
I guess you're confusing China with Egypt here. Egypt was a powerhouse a thousand years before China even started crawling out as a tiny country.
No. I guess you're confusing modern day Arabic Egypt with Ancient Egypt. Because Ancient Egypt's days as a powerhouse started in 3K BC and ended in 343 BC, making them only about 3K years long. Whereas China started in 2K BC and is still going strong in 2K CE. Chinese people from 2K BC are still here with the same culture, same writing system, long contiguous history. Ancient Egyptians are nowhere to be found, except for a few mummies in museums.
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On February 16 2011 00:18 StorkHwaiting wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2011 00:07 Manit0u wrote:On February 16 2011 00:03 fabiano wrote:
China is 5000 years old, no way France could have the most interesting war history than any other country in the world.
I guess you're confusing China with Egypt here. Egypt was a powerhouse a thousand years before China even started crawling out as a tiny country. No. I guess you're confusing modern day Arabic Egypt with Ancient Egypt. Because Ancient Egypt's days as a powerhouse started in 3K BC and ended in 343 BC, making them only about 3K years long. Whereas China started in 2K BC and is still going strong in 2K CE. Chinese people from 2K BC are still here with the same culture, same writing system, long contiguous history. Ancient Egyptians are nowhere to be found, except for a few mummies in museums.
Some would think that is not a good thing. When you're still doing things that you did 5k years ago, you might be doing something wrong.
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On February 16 2011 00:18 StorkHwaiting wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2011 00:07 Manit0u wrote:On February 16 2011 00:03 fabiano wrote:
China is 5000 years old, no way France could have the most interesting war history than any other country in the world.
I guess you're confusing China with Egypt here. Egypt was a powerhouse a thousand years before China even started crawling out as a tiny country. No. I guess you're confusing modern day Arabic Egypt with Ancient Egypt. Because Ancient Egypt's days as a powerhouse started in 3K BC and ended in 343 BC, making them only about 3K years long. Whereas China started in 2K BC and is still going strong in 2K CE. Chinese people from 2K BC are still here with the same culture, same writing system, long contiguous history. Ancient Egyptians are nowhere to be found, except for a few mummies in museums.
Frankly if you are not counting Ptolemaic Egypt, than we should discount Yuan dynasty, Manchurian dynasty, and a lot of others. China also oftentimes was not one state. This strange "contest" makes no sense, because it would be pretty hard to create clear criteria. If you do we can discuss it, but as it is it is too vague. The French thing is of course also ridiculous, counting Celts as French, that is stretching it.
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On February 16 2011 00:30 mcc wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2011 00:18 StorkHwaiting wrote:On February 16 2011 00:07 Manit0u wrote:On February 16 2011 00:03 fabiano wrote:
China is 5000 years old, no way France could have the most interesting war history than any other country in the world.
I guess you're confusing China with Egypt here. Egypt was a powerhouse a thousand years before China even started crawling out as a tiny country. No. I guess you're confusing modern day Arabic Egypt with Ancient Egypt. Because Ancient Egypt's days as a powerhouse started in 3K BC and ended in 343 BC, making them only about 3K years long. Whereas China started in 2K BC and is still going strong in 2K CE. Chinese people from 2K BC are still here with the same culture, same writing system, long contiguous history. Ancient Egyptians are nowhere to be found, except for a few mummies in museums. Frankly if you are not counting Ptolemaic Egypt, than we should discount Yuan dynasty, Manchurian dynasty, and a lot of others. China also oftentimes was not one state. This strange "contest" makes no sense, because it would be pretty hard to create clear criteria. If you do we can discuss it, but as it is it is too vague. The French thing is of course also ridiculous, counting Celts as French, that is stretching it.
No, it's pretty well established by historians that China is the only ancient culture that has survived into the modern day. You can't make that argument for any other country in the world.
Because while the Ptolemaic Greeks went a far way to stamping out Ancient Egyptian culture and replacing it with Greek, the Chinese culture and people were never absorbed or changed by the Mongolians or Manchurians. In fact, it was the opposite, which is an effect also much studied by historians and has even earned the term Sinicization.
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Take for example Frederick II of prussia. His country fought austria, sweden,russia and france all at the same time(thats getting attacked north,south,east,west!). Although he fought brilliantly in these battles, it was poor grand strategy by him and in the end the war got him 0 result and back where he started, minus all the men he lost during the war.
Frederick was partially to blame for the coalition assembled against him in 1756, although it was not a war of his design. In short, he did not "plan" to go to war simultaneously against the French coalition, but practically forced into it by the Franco-Austrian rapproachment, and fear of diplomatic isolation drove him into the treaty of Westminster. Of far greater damage than his non-existent strategic concept (the Third Silesian War was a defensive war) were his diplomatic duplicity (in the 18th century he crossed the fine line between "artist" and pariah) and his compulsive Voltarian teasing, which offended everyone in Europe, including Voltaire! Rumours of his army's rough treatment of the Queen of Saxony amounted to 100 000 French troops in Germany.
In assessing Frederick's generalship, you have to separate his incidental advantages from his true greatness. When Frederick became King in 1740, he inherited the best-drilled army in Europe, along with some of the best commanders of the age (Prince Henry, Seydlitz, Winterfeldt.) Tactically his army was superior in maneouvre, which allowed him to fight immensely complex battles, in which he was almost always on the offensive. Now, with this superior army he won just above half of his battles. Often the very complexity of his designs fell apart when a critical component went wrong (Kolin,) but also allowed him brilliant victories which are today military lore (Rossbach, Leuthen.) In short, when he excelled, he excelled brilliantly, and when he lost, he lost miserably, with enormous casualties. As he aged, many of his mainstays fell in battle, and his veterans disappeared from the colours, by the end of the Seven Years War, he was on his last ropes. However in the meantime he had accumulated the greatest military reputation of the age, and for no small reason. The quality and adaptability of his army outshined by far the cautious Austrians and disorganized Russians. The superiority was there from the beginning, but only a man of Frederick's energy could have given it its reputation.
I also don't understand the criticisms of Lee on his inability to fight on the basis of the "Big picture."
First, being unable to win wars does not disqualify someone from the title of being a great general. His outmanoeuvring of overwhelming Federal forces culminating in 2nd Bull Run in McClellan's Virginia campaign is a textbook example of using movement to disrupt the advance of superior forces.
Secondly, Grant held the title of Supreme Commander of the Union's forces, whereas Lee was the Commander of North Virginia for the majority of the war. At worst, Lee's refusal to leave Virginia was symptomatic of the entire Confederate war effort. Earlier in the year Johnston attempted to draw the resources of the Western states for the defense of Vicksburg, and his efforts were politically vetoed. The states were averse to permit federalization of the army, and the defense of the west was disjointed from the beginning. For the West's fall Lee was hardly the most responsible. It's probably fairer to say that his military talents helped avert the same fate in the East for four years.
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On February 16 2011 00:35 StorkHwaiting wrote:Show nested quote +On February 16 2011 00:30 mcc wrote:On February 16 2011 00:18 StorkHwaiting wrote:On February 16 2011 00:07 Manit0u wrote:On February 16 2011 00:03 fabiano wrote:
China is 5000 years old, no way France could have the most interesting war history than any other country in the world.
I guess you're confusing China with Egypt here. Egypt was a powerhouse a thousand years before China even started crawling out as a tiny country. No. I guess you're confusing modern day Arabic Egypt with Ancient Egypt. Because Ancient Egypt's days as a powerhouse started in 3K BC and ended in 343 BC, making them only about 3K years long. Whereas China started in 2K BC and is still going strong in 2K CE. Chinese people from 2K BC are still here with the same culture, same writing system, long contiguous history. Ancient Egyptians are nowhere to be found, except for a few mummies in museums. Frankly if you are not counting Ptolemaic Egypt, than we should discount Yuan dynasty, Manchurian dynasty, and a lot of others. China also oftentimes was not one state. This strange "contest" makes no sense, because it would be pretty hard to create clear criteria. If you do we can discuss it, but as it is it is too vague. The French thing is of course also ridiculous, counting Celts as French, that is stretching it. No, it's pretty well established by historians that China is the only ancient culture that has survived into the modern day. You can't make that argument for any other country in the world. Because while the Ptolemaic Greeks went a far way to stamping out Ancient Egyptian culture and replacing it with Greek, the Chinese culture and people were never absorbed or changed by the Mongolians or Manchurians. In fact, it was the opposite, which is an effect also much studied by historians and has even earned the term Sinicization.
What are the criteria then ? One other region comes to mind that might satisfy it, but I am definitely not sure : Southern India ?
It was more a merger than replacement with solely Greek culture. I know that ruling Mongolians were assimilated, but the term is not an argument, there is russification, germanization even the craziest word I know prutenization (who will guess to which region it refers gets a cookie  ). But my main point is the first sentence, what are the criteria ?
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On February 16 2011 00:03 fabiano wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 23:54 WhiteDog wrote:Haha, thanks, I'm so tired of this idea that French always lost. In fact everybody is flaming us because we have "the most interesting war history than any other country in the world". China is 5000 years old, no way France could have the most interesting war history than any other country in the world. I hope I am romanianing here I missed a possible sarcasm in that website. lol (<-- no, thats not a french with his hands up )
Read china's history, read again. Then post.
Or read some chapter of Guns, Germs and Steel from Jared Diamond. There is a chapter entirely dedicated on China where he try to understand why china never had been the superpower it should have.
(Basically, not enough competition).
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On February 15 2011 13:53 Shrinky Dink wrote:![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/giCRx.jpg) Seriously though, if you look past the horrors he did, he was actually an excellent speaker, with his war machine being responsible for some of the greatest advances in technology and science, and recovered his country's extreme deficit in its economy at the time (following the Treaty of Versailles). I know it's obviously that he wasn't the greatest of all time, but IMO he is very underrated as a leader for his country since everyone looks at his cons.
This man wasnt a general. In fact, if you look carfully enough, everyhting he touched that had anything to do with the military turned to shit. Stalingrad, The Battle of Britain ect...
He just claimed that the work of his generals were his work.
The best group of generals in military history are that of nazi germany, but its a shame the were fighting under such a horrible flag because I actually would respect them.
The best general in my opinion is Guderian (the guy who invented Blitzkreig). However, Goring is almost definatly the worst. (If Goring played starcraft, he'd 6 pool every game).
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![[image loading]](http://www.toei-anim.co.jp/tv/bo-bobo/image/chara05.gif)
Ladies and gentlemen, General Jelly Jiggler!
(From Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo, the weirdest anime ever)
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On February 15 2011 23:43 Monsen wrote:Show nested quote +On February 15 2011 21:45 mofisto wrote:On February 15 2011 21:38 Aresien wrote:On February 15 2011 21:00 mofisto wrote:
And it was the French who dealt the decisive blow at the end of WW1 (second battlle of the Marne).
The French have a glorious military history, and it's not only under NApolean that they achieved them. The idea that the French couldnt fight themselves out of a wet paper bag is completely false (not that that is what you're saying here, it's just a common opinion)
You sure that you're from the UK? Lol, yeah mate. I just know that what most people believe about the french military is completely false. I mean even we would have been invaded by the nazis if it hadn't been for the channel. We would not have stood a chance Let's all be thankful for it's existence then (the channels), without it we all might be wearing brown, speaking german and be raised as xenophobe assholes. (Alternatively we might be mutants living in a radioactive europe- nuclear launch detected!) Btw. I'm pretty sure while the british beat "Rommel in the end" like you said, they never outgeneraled him, which is what the thread is about so ;9
One of the strongest illustrations of the modern military being a composite machine is the Wehrmacht, whose frontline generals would often maximize situational awareness and local initiative by operating at the spearhead of their troops, whereas senior allied generals tended to fight a general staff war from behind the lines. It's been frequently touted as one source of German ascendancy in local engagements, sometimes with grotesque contrasts between German speed and Allied slowness (Kesselring's dash to Salerno, when a few weeks prior the German high command expected to lose the entirety of Italy)
In modern campaigns at least, one has to distinguish staff generals who synchronize micromanagement of grand strategy from field generals. Moltke the elder was a role-model of the former, while Napoleon and Rommel were role-models of the latter. During the Napoleonic wars there was the popular allied adage "Miracles only happen when the Emperor is present, and the Emperor cannot be everywhere at once." Fortunately, he had Berthier to manage those irritating details for him.
A third category has to be devised for the army-builders i.e. Frederick Wilhelm I, Louis Carnot, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Kitchener, who created great armies which others fought with.
I also disagree that Hitler was a clueless director of military strategy. He was a dilettante, but an extremely talented one (in the words of Grand Admiral Raeder.) Unfortunately Hitler is the figure in history most simplified and made into caricature. I'd encourage Ernst-Percy Schramm's book on Hitler the Military Leader for anyone interested in a balanced assessment of Hitler's contributions to the war.
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On February 16 2011 00:18 StorkHwaiting wrote:
Chinese people from 2K BC are still here with the same culture
Nope
same writing system
Nope
long contiguous history
Nope
China has undergone a tremendous amount of change through the centuries. I don't think you could really say that the country we see in the modern day is anything close to what it was a few centuries ago. Even modern day China doesn't share the same culture and language across all of its regions and provinces. Politically speaking, it may be a single country, but the reality is that it's a very fractured one with deep regional divisions, very much reflective of its past.
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EPT![[image loading]](http://www.7-07.com/images/general-pershing-big.jpg)
