re: Rommel Vs Patton

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If his superior officers had let him run the show we would all be speaking German now.

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I hate myself for upvoting you right now

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Easiest to find out is to sit them down at a poker table, pretty much the same thing

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Patton would go all in on the turn with a jack high flush draw, Rommel would slow play a full house and take everybody's money.

Im not disagreeing with you necessarily but this sort of blitz krieg method has been very successful for not only the German army but the US army in the invasion or Iraq.

There is a time and place for everything no doubt. The Russians were game for war. The Poles and Iraqis were not. Ill let you decide what the French were. Sometimes your opponent just needs a quick punch to make their arse quit. Sometimes they need to be slowly contracted like anaconda. It works both ways in chess too depending on the deployment of pieces and defenses. A sarcrifice and quick attack can win a game while in other games you need to slowly work the position and make small improvements.

They were equal. The great thing about those two is how they complimented one another ... and the similarities where their commands were concerned - with regard to their superiors.

It is the fate of all great military leaders.

The better question is:

Grant Vs Lee

Who was the better General?

Now you get into something that is far more telling.

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That's also the kind of thinking that leads to overstretched and poorly guarded supply lines that result in your troops freezing to death without food or ammunition on the road to Moscow.

Your argument is better served on a smaller company scale. That kind of quick thinking and fast action is crucial of the squad commanders, but a general has to be able to see the whole picture. It's not enough to simply take an objective, you have to have a way to get in supplies and reserves to hold it (or in the case of Bastogne some badass mofos with a lot of luck)

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Patton gets too much credit for Sicily. The mafia, via Lucky Luciano, handed him so much intel that the Italian mafia partisans were literally standing there waiting on Patton to hand him maps of the island and directions to where the Germans were hiding.

Bastogne is another example of him getting too much credit.

The 101st caught hell, no doubt about it. The First and Third Armies eventually got there and bailed them out ... but that was more due to a break in the weather and reinforcements from the mother fricking All-Americans of the 82nd Airborne Division (full disclosure, my old unit), than anything.

Which led to the famous poster of the 82nd paratrooper walking to the front line in Ardennes:



(The main avenue where we troops are barracked at Fort Bragg is named "Ardennes" for a reason. WWI - The All American Division with Corporal Alvin C York took control of that forest, and when called upon again in WWII during the Battle of the Bulge the AA's of the 82nd did it again - without mercy. That's why the 82nd is still Airborne while the 101st were relegated to legs on a rope.)

Again, Patton gets too much credit. He did good, but he didn't actually save the day as has been depicted by Hollywood.

Pretty sure we won the war so Rommel automatically becomes a JV general.

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Hitler made two great mistakes during the course of the war that really cost him. Well, three really.

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He made way more than 2 or 3.

#1 Not utilizing the correct technology in war. One of the most glaring examples was using the ME 262 as a tactical bomber - as replacement for the Ju 87 - or recon instead of primary fighter. Another glaring example was Kursk which was pretty much the beginning of the end for Germany. German armor was the best of the war and the American was the worst. Russia understood you could make the T34 at maybe 70% of the german armor but then make so many of them they could stream like rabid rats once a hole was punched in the line.

#2 Picking a fight with Russia before finishing the other fights. Stalingrad and Kursk are glaring examples of splitting forces instead of waiting to concentrate 100% on the Russians. Not knocking the run through Italy or D Day and beyond but facing at best 40% of the German army or much less it did make progress much easier. Once Hitler went after Russia and opened up that front the Germans never had less than 60% of their forces on this front. While landing in France was a huge deal from the American side of the history books it certainly helped when they did not meet 100% of the German Army in resistance.

#3 Not understanding the real value of the American Army. While I love America it does not blind me to the real success of her forces in the field and the beauty of secondary assets in resupply and rebuilding behind the primary line. Imagine the value of getting an airfield pounded in both land, material, and assets behind the lines at night and having it up and running at near full strength by the next day. If you really want to demoralize your opponents making their attacks look that ineffective and you know you have the far better support system.

Somewhere, long before the internet, I seem to remember seeing a startling number like 20 for 1 for the American Army in WWII. Basically this means for every soldier you have in the field there are 20 folks behind him in support and supply. That alone is a pretty glaring competitive advantage. As for the overall issue of WWII, it is hard to sustain a primary war when you do not posses the primary energy source of that war to sustain it.

WWII was a war of oil and neither Germany or Japan had the primary resources inside their home borders to fight with advantage if their remote supplies were threatened. In the 1940's both Russian and America were flush in natural oil resources in their primary footprint. Perhaps the greatest contribution of Churchill was converting the British Navy from coal to oil prior to WWII and securing the British oil franchise in the middle east to supply that Navy.

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Grant Vs Lee

Who was the better General?

Now you get into something that is far more telling.

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Grant knew his advantages over Lee and used them properly to achieve victory. He could suffer losses and replace them, Lee could not. He was not afraid to take casualties if it was a means to an end. He was what the Union needed to bring an end to the conflict. From the standpoint of a battlefield tactician, however, he was very much outclassed by Lee. Earlier in the war Lee also had very capable corps commander in A.P. Hill, Longstreet, and Jackson which were a great benefit to him, too. His major blunder was Gettysburg, a tactical blunder of epic proportions, but it was an outlier to a very good military record.

I often wonder had Lee listened to Longstreet at Gettysburg and outflanked the Federals instead of throwing away men in attacks that could not possibly succeed what might have been.

Pickett's Charge had NO chance. Day 2 to me was the high water mark of the Confederacy when General Barksdale's Mississippians overran Dan Sickles and nearly split the Union Army in two. But even this attack was poorly coordinated and not enough men were thrown in to begin with. Had Pickett's division been present things might have been different.