Who is the most over-rater leader, commander or icon of WWII?
Lt. Hanley 351st King Company. He had no idea what Saunders had to go thru on some of his missions. His leadership was for never giving Saunders a full platoon, but sending out 3 men and a doctor about 80% of the time knowing that Doc can’t fire a gun under the terms of the Geneva Conference.
Usually they were always fighting 2:1 and 3:1 odds and even had a share of fighting halftracks and tanks with nothing but M1 carbine and Thompson.
In the episode Hill is for Hero’s, Hanley sent a green platoon with no cover or proper artillery support and latter kept losing men to take out two pillboxes. He lost like 70% of his men in ridiculous attacks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tE2u1cn6AHg.
AS far as fictional characters, I would have to say Heinrich Himmler was totally unqualified. Hitler gave him an army group in 1945 and he kept getting “sick” because he didn’t want to have his reputation on the line. Goering was another idiot who added nothing to Germany, but failure after failure and large bills for perfume and food costs that bankrupted the Reich.
General Mark Clark
Depends on what we judge as important. Marshal Zhukov was pretty over-rated in my opinion; he wasn’t a particularly capable commander. Of course, he was a Hero of the Soviet Union, but he achieved that through ruthlessness, not strategy. Most under-rated: the Shovel, the true Hero of the Soviet Union!
I think Patton is the most over-rated leader of his century. Everybody knows him and belive he is a hero, and that he won the WWII alone. But when you think about it, exactely what crucial decisions did he take, that could not have been done by another equal general ? Right, see my point ? Patton was famous, he build his image on PR and propaganda, but his skills as a leader was not better than the average general. He was lucky and had a lot of rough men from the South in his division, and they did the job on the ground. But what if his boys come from Kentucky, California or New York, would he then have been able to liberate Bastogne, pull the Kasserine Pass etc etc ? I think not.
MacArthur let his planes get strafed and shot to hell after hearing about pearl, was a pr hound, among other things. The two things that stand out the most about him though, was being relieved by Truman during the Korean War and also he was in charge of the removal of a Hooverville outside DC in the thirties. Eisenhower and Patton were also involved in this but I am pretty sure MacArthur was in charge(need to look it up). This turned out to be a huge embarrassment to Hoover, on top of everything else that went wrong.
Montgomery almost all the leaders who had to work with that guy seemed to dislike him, including Churchill. His most well known aggressive plan turned out to be a dismal failure.
Patton made his share of mistakes too; the raid on the prison camp, his supply lines were always a mess, and of course well known “slapping” incidents. On the other hand he made a number of predictions that did turn out to be true in a tactical and strategic sense about the fighting in Italy and Soviet Union (to name two off the top of my head). Patton also understood tanks better than most military commanders, he commanded some of the first tanks in WWI. Of These three I would rather have Patton in charge.
wow…where to choose…if i had to make one pick…i think it would be Gen. Montgomery…assume Hitler sends Rommel what he wants and TORCH doesnt happen…how do u think he would have done?
General Kleist…Imo he had absolut no clue what Blitzkrieg is about!!..
wow…where to choose…if i had to make one pick…i think it would be Gen. Montgomery…assume Hitler sends Rommel what he wants and TORCH doesnt happen…how do u think he would have done?
I beleive Romme had little chance of winning in North Africa. By 1942 the Allies were shipping to Africa tanks equal to the Germans and in numbers the Germans never could match. Rommel was in error whenever he invaded Egypt after the fall of Tobruk. He should have set up a defensive line at the Libya/Egypt frontier.
If Hitler had supplied Rommel with what he had requested… namely: another Panzer Division and enough oil and ammo for a three-week campaign of solid driving and fighting, Egypt would have fallen.
Eisenhower and Patton were also involved in this but I am pretty sure MacArthur was in charge(need to look it up).
do you meen patton was in the korean war (he was dead in 1945)
no I wasn’t talking about the Korean War-
I was talking about the military action against a “hooverville” in the 1930s. Macarthur was in command of that particular incident. Patton and Eisonhower were also involved as subordinates. “The Bonus Army” if that makes it more clear.
If Hitler had supplied Rommel with what he had requested… namely: another Panzer Division and enough oil and ammo for a three-week campaign of solid driving and fighting, Egypt would have fallen.
Even if Hitler had tried to send Rommel what he needed overwhelming British air superiority, intelligence, and T-class submarines might well have sunk any ships carrying Panzers en route, and they would have been bloody useless at the bottom of the Med.
Colonel Klink! Hogan and his men ran circles around him. I don’t really think Stalag 13 deserved its reputation as escape proof.
Colonel Klink! Hogan and his men ran circles around him. I don’t really think Stalag 13 deserved its reputation as escape proof.
Yea that guy was terrible. Id vote for him too. You could dress Sgt. Shultz like Hitler and Klink would be easily fooled!
As far as overrated generals go I vote for MacArthur. What did he do besides loose the Philippine’s (when he had a 3:2 advantage over the Japanese) and loose the Korean war (ending with him being relieved of command).
Still he is looked at as one of the best generals of all time?
Colonel Sanders!
Well of course, that is the obvious choice :)
I’d have to agree with Macarthur and Patton, they are well known and famous for their bombastic rhetoric and PR crews, but they werent that great in terms of commanders. They made alot of bad decissions and would waste their advantages on stupid prestige missions. Now, a great under rated allied commander, I think was Joe Stillwell. The things he managed to do with some of the lowest priority troops in the world and the worst supplies is simply amazing. Also, their is a long list of under rated commanders from the Chinese Nationalist army during WW2 who, when you think of the quality of their troops on average, its really amazing that the won ever. Commanders like Du Yuming, commander of the 200th division, Chinas first Mechnaized division. Xu Yu, commander of forces in Hunan province, who defeated the Japanese 3 times when they tried to take the provinical capital of Changsha. Also, Li Zhongren and Bai Chongxi, 2 of the best, who managed to stop the Japanese drive on Wuhan and kept the Japanese armies advancing from the North from linking up with those comming from Shanghai in the battle of taierzhuang. The list could go on.
As far as overrated generals go I vote for MacArthur. What did he do besides loose the Philippine’s (when he had a 3:2 advantage over the Japanese) and loose the Korean war (ending with him being relieved of command).
Still he is looked at as one of the best generals of all time?
He did not LOSE the Philippines! His lines of supply were cut off buy the Japanese navy and air force. Most of his land forces were Philippine army. The U.S. air forces that were lost on the ground would only have prolonged the fight a little longer. He had no hope of resupply or reinforcement. He did not LOSE the Korean conflict. The North Koreans were soundly defeated. Then the Chinese started a totally new war. Truman was worried that MacArthur would escalate the war (which the Chinese had already done) so he relieved the general and settled for a stalemate.
