Favourite Generals/Military commanders?

William Hickie, Led the 16th Irish Division during WW1 and went on to become a member of the Senate after retiring from the British Army in 1922 in the new Irish Free state until 1936.
Gave irish Soldiers serving the crown their own Irish Identity, a policy which was neither liked nor encouraged by Haig. However his association with the Division coencides with their successes.

Heinz Guderian

Hannibal of Carthage.
Dan Carlin of Hardcore History does a fantastic podcast on him. Would keep you entertained for a few hours, up on itunes

I'm also fascinated by Japanese history and their entire way of life
There were many great generals so I can't name the best. Oda Nobunga would possibly be the most well known

I read Art of War by Sun Tzu
As I understand even business executives use the tactics in the book. And some modern armies have their officers study the book.
I found it very interesting though can't say I've learned off anything from it or ever tried to use it. I've forgotten most of it, I've give it a read again during the week

Favourite Generals/Military commanders would be Caesar.

but who was the best? well then they are different categories

Army: the better the army the less points.
Leadership
strategy/Tactics
Enemy
politics
Scale
Legacy
Luck: more luck the less points.

these mighten be everyones cup of tea but they to me make up what makes a great leader.

Napoleon Bonaparte, Alexander the great, Julius Caesar, Ghengis Khan, Hannibal Barca would be the main contenders. that others that come to mind are patton, Zhukov, scipio africanus, pompey, sulla, philip of macedon, Henry V, constantine the great and so on.

Napoleon Bonaparte

Army: The french army was one of the best in Europe at the time so. 2 points
Leadership: Napoleon lead from the front but took up the general position later on in his life time. 4 points.
strategy/Tactics: One of the best there ever was. 10 points
Enemy: Had most of europe against him and it was really only the russian winter that defeated him. Men like wellington are only remembered because they were the enemy of napoleon. 10 points
politics: set up napolenic code which is used still today and influenced other europe countries politics. 7 points
Scale: Europe and their colonies including the oceans. 10 points
Legacy: Napoleon legacy is only second to Julius Caesars and is vast legacy from politics to military to pop culture. 8
Luck: never lost a battle(was too sick to be in charge of the french army at waterloo) but not much luck when it came to the Coalitions set up against him. 4 point

Napoleon gets 55/80

Hannibal Barca

Army: Not the best and was made up of his own trained troops and lot of hired mercenires. 8 points
Leadership: more typical general but was known to be in the thick of it and shared the same conditions as his men. 7
strategy/Tactics: with what he had, he did more than any other in history but failed in strategy so 8
Enemy: The romans were the americans of their day and brought them to their knees, hannibal left an impression on the romans and they even had a statue of him in rome which was unheard of for one of rome's enemies. it is said that scipio africanus made out that hannibal was better opponent to make scipio look good so. 9
politics: not really a political man so 2
Scale: shuck the known world that was the med but little else. 5
Legacy: left no lasting legacy and his actions resulted in his homeland being reduced to a province of rome. But is still to this day studied in military academies. 6
Luck: did not have any luck at all when crossing the alps but made alot of his own luck. 4.

Hannibal gets 49/80

Alexander The Great

Army: had the one of the first professional armies made by his dad. 2
Leadership: lead from the front and was injured for it. 10
strategy/Tactics: was a good tactician but had easly opponents. 7
Enemy: The persian empire and the greeks city states were declining at the time of Alexander and it was the amount of troops and terrian that seemed to make it harder for alexander. 5
politics: brought greek politics to the middle east but was more a military man than politican. 6
Scale: Alexander conqueored the known world and much more, if it wasn't for his own troops mutiny, would have conquered more. 10
Legacy: His empire didn't last after his death but his influnence is felt stil today in the lands he had conquorered. he is mentioned in the bible and Koran and is the benchmark for all other general that have come after to measure themselves. All his subordinates became great generals and Kings after his death. 10
Luck: Could have died many times in battle and alot of his battles were won by pure agression but made alot of his own luck 3

Alexander the Great 53/80

Julius Caesar

Army:Had the roman army, the best in the world at the time and better because of the Marian reforms. 1
Leadership: when needed, Caesar would appear in the thick of it and was close to being killed a few times 8
strategy/Tactics: not the best in this area but wasn't bad either: 6
Enemy: had the gauls, but also faced fellow romans and defeated Pompey the great and he wasn'y called great for nothing. 6
politics: Caesar was the greatest politican ever and everything he did was a stepping stone to further his political career. 10
Scale: increased the size of roman control land by one third. 9
Legacy: took control of rome, introduced laws that were still used by romans 400 years after his death. reformed the calendar which gave us 365 days a year with 12 months and even named a month after himself, July. his name was used by royality as title of power up until the early twentieth century. over 2000 years after his death. 10
Luck: Ceasar had a lot of luck in his life such examples would be Battle of Dyrrhachium and Battle of Pharsalus. 1

Julius Caesar gets 51/80

thats it for now but those 4 are good enough. Again these are are all my own opinions

I second Wellington, not just because he was Irish but because he defeated Napoleon who was easily one of the best ever. Indeed in a magazine recently someone queried why it's called the Napoleonic era. He maintained the Wellington was the pre eminent general of the era.

Of course without Napoleon there was no Wellington.

It is very subjective of course.

OS119 wrote: »

keeping a force effective when it suffers a 45% casualty rate is a pretty good indicator of strong leadership in my book.

every Luftwaffe night fighter fending off streams of Lancasters is a loss to German tactical air power, every radar set used to control an intercept over Berlin is a radar set not being used to hunt for Allied Shipping in the North Atlantic, every 88mm gun around a German city is an 88mm gun not in Normandy, or Stalingrad.

alone, all of these forced diversions of military power have a significant impact on the ability of the Germans to keep the land forces of their enemies at bay.

add in the disruption to the German war economy of the effects of bombing on transport, labour force (a polite term for killing the civilian workforce, so the Gerrmans have to import slave labour, at yet more actual and opportunity cost) and constantly having to rebuild their factories - and i'm given to understand that building factories under mountains isn't exactly cheap or quick - and you have a hell of a strategy.

beating the **** out of your enemy with a brick may not be pretty or artful, but it does work - and that is the definition of a successfull strategy, not whether you leave attractive tracks in the desert.

If we're talking air commanders, Dowding and Park are yer only men.

Bomber commanders - LeMay - talked the talk and walked (flew it too) - didn't send crews out on missions he wasn't prepared to lead himself. He was also mad as a box of frogs. McNamara described him thus in 'The Fog of War'

"One of the commanders was Curtis LeMay—Colonel in command of a B-24 /I][URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sic"][COLOR=#0000ff][I]sic[/I][/COLOR][/URL][I group. He was the finest combat commander of any service I came across in war. But he was extraordinarily belligerent, many thought brutal. He got the report [about crews aborting missions]. He issued an order. He said, 'I will be in the lead plane on every mission. Any plane that takes off will go over the target, or the crew will be court-martialed.' The abort rate dropped overnight. Now that's the kind of commander he was."

In terms of destructive power, US 8th Air Force was probably the most potent formation in WWII - even more so than RAF Bomber Command.

ReacherCreature wrote: »

George Kenny? Curtis LeMay? Pete Quesada?


......

Might have to agree to differ, but Dowding conceived, developed and applied a unique system of air defence (based admittedly on some of the work carried out by Ashmore in WWI) and Park applied it brilliantly in the face of political pressure and conventional wisdom, as it was then.

Neither could have survived without the other. Park's defensive action on the 15/9/40 was as close to genius in air fighting as you're likely to see.

LeMay was 'thorough' strong-willed and single-minded, perhaps not especially creative, but he got the job done (more from the Fog of War).....