Communications cock ups (can I use this term?) - charge of the light brigade (1 Viewer)

panda1gen said:
As for Monty -...but he didn't waste his men's lives and generally fought war in a professional manner, unlike the previous amateur performances, especially in the desert. I'll take your word on Grant.;) Looking forward to the 'bar chats'. Best wishes,

Kevin
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Ok Kevin I have sat here all day after reading this and decided I had to take issue with the comments on the performance in the desert by the British Field Commanders. Its really inaccurate to say that the performances in the desert were amateur as a matter of fact they were really anything but. General Sir Richard O'Conner was the Forgotten Victor of North Africa and if he had not been taken prisoner after he had nearly destroyed the Italians and caused the Axis to send Rommel to the theather he would probably have become a Field Marshal too. He and Wavell really thumped the Italians and did it soundly with some really lousey equipment. So when you make blanket statements like this be prepared for a little resistance. If you would like to read about these two Gentlemen please look for The Forgotten Victor by Sir John Baynes or The Desert Generals by Correlli Barnett or the Dilemmas of the Desert War by Field Marshal Lord Carver. As for Monty he was a decent commander and there is no doubting his ability to organize an assault and follow through but I dont look at him the same as I do Slim who was a masterful Field Commander in my book. As for Haig its not possible to defend his record during the first war and Grant did what was necessary to get the job done and he used the North's man and material advantages the way they should have been used from the get go!

Have a good one

Dave
 
Dave

Brilliant, love a good argument. Unfortunately though we are going to have a serious agreement. I have already mentioned O'Connor and Wavell in another thread - Wavell was probably the best.:cool:

What I meant was that Monty took over and stopped the British Cavalry charge tactics after the German tanks at Ruweisat Ridge, used artillery and anti -tank guns plus full air superiority to wage a professional war rather than the amateur 'charge'. Insisted they stay hull down and use the ground. See Barrie Pitt 'Crucible of War' Third part of the Trilogy. Ok? Beer time?:D

Best wishes, Kevin
 
Cheers Kevin!

I have Pitts books too they are good reading also.

Dave
 
panda1gen said:
Dear Louis

I'm not letting you get away with that one :) Beautifully slipped in little snipe at Monty. The British establishment may have liked him (Haig) but don't think anyone else did. :eek:

As for Monty - he was a junior officer in WW! and also despised Haig et al. But he was later respected as never needlessly wasting the lives of his men - even the Aussies thought so - are you there OzDigger, help me out here:D

His main problem was to upset some Americans in the bragging stakes? Patton ands co. weren't the only ones - I've mentioned somewhere else on here 'as quick as a ferret and about as likeable' was one of his appraisals and he was insufferable as a subordinate by all accounts - but he didn't waste his men's lives and generally fought war in a professional manner, unlike the previous amateur performances, especially in the desert. I'll take your word on Grant.;) Looking forward to the 'bar chats'. Best wishes,

Kevin
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Talk about communication problems. I have been off-air for some time as my five year old computer was struck down by lightning (God or Bill Gates). I guess I should have invested in a newer style power board that has an indication light advising protection problems. Anyway after lengthy inspection(s) the repairer finally decided it was best to put her down and I've had to buy a new computer system with Windows XP, so all my old Windows 98 files, bookmarks etc are now basically useless - but that's progress as they say. Apparently old files can be converted but the effort seemed to much trouble to me.

Kevin, I'd agree that Monty cared more about his troops than most Generals, including Patton imo.
 
It would be hard to care less about your troops than Patton did, as is evidenced by his sending Combat Command B from one of his armored divisions on that insane raid on a POW camp 60 miles behind enemy lines to attempt to rescue his son in law. That being said, while caring about your troops is nice, McClellen cared about his troops and (like Monty) was well loved by them, but (like Monty), he lacked sufficient aggression [i.e. Monty's crossing of the Rhine] and (again like Monty) when he did attack, tended to do so with plans that were grandoise and unrealistic for his troops to execute under the prevailing physical circumstances [i.e. Market garden and Goodwood].

By the way, despite the fact that we have diametrically opposed views of Monty, we have one thing in common: my computer's hard drive crapped out on me last week, and I also had to buy a new computer and lost some files. Computers are like women: can't live with them, can't live without them.
 
I'm wondering if we're to the point where we should agree to disagree about Louis' favorite general, Monty :D. While we're speaking of books, I'm reading one now that I like a lot, Bierman and Smith's The Battle of Alamein, Turning Point World War II. One that I just picked up but I don't like how it's written is James Holland's Together We Stand about how the Allies picked themselves off the mat in North Africa.

General O'Connor was a big loss as evidenced by the fate of his sucessors until Monty came along (and he wouldn't have come along but for the fact that fate played a fortunate hand for the British when Gott was killed ).
 
Hi Guys,

Interesting perspectives for sure. I will have to temper my thoughts on the mission to get the POWs that included the son in law. But that not withstanding I think Patton was our very best Armored Combat Commander followed closely by Generals Harmon, ID White and Lucian Truscott.

Dave
 
I thought that I was the only one to actually read 48 Hours To Hamelburg some million years ago, a wonderful book about a band of heroes ( Task Force Baum ),who near fought to the last man and were ignored by history, because of the ensuing cover up...........Michael
 
DMNamiot said:
Hi Guys,

Interesting perspectives for sure. I will have to temper my thoughts on the mission to get the POWs that included the son in law. But that not withstanding I think Patton was our very best Armored Combat Commander followed closely by Generals Harmon, ID White and Lucian Truscott.

Dave
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Dear Dave

Now we can have our argument!!!!:mad: Patton was 'respectfully' surely not the best, just the best publicist?

Kevin:D
 
I agree with Kevin, I don't think Patton was our best armored commander. My vote goes to General Rose of the Third Armored Division, who, sadly, died in the Ruhr Pocket (known to veteran's of the Spearhead Division as the Rose Pocket). Patton got a lot of credit for Rose's successes becasue Patton commanded the 3rd Army, while Rose commanded the Third Armored Division, and the press usually screwed up the reference in favor of Patton, the most colorful American Commander. I think Zhuchov must also be considered (perhaps more for his pre-war success against Japanese forces then for his later butcher tactics). For my money the best overall Allied general was Slim in Burma.
 
Hi Guys,

Since I have to get the kids in a few minutes I will not have time to do this justice right now. As for Zhuchoz he would be fun to look into but he aint in the category when I said "our" I ment US, now if were going to talk about whos best overall or by country of course he has a place. As for Pattons ability or publicist well his ability speaks for it self as for publicist I dont think so because he was raked over the coals many times by the press so we'll have to talk about it more later.

Remember results is what we're talking about especially for a military point of view not necessarily a popularity contest. General Rose was very good but there were many many other American Divisional Commanders that were in my opinion better.

We will have to look at the levels of command and rank them accordingly. I have seen the anti Patton comments before and will allow you your opinions we'll merely have to agree to disagree. Maybe what we need to do here is discuss the various field commanders for each Army involved and see if we can come up with a good idea of where folks are coming from and why. I will have a lot more to say about this later.

Dave
 
Perhaps Brad is correct with his agree to disagree suggestion about Monty (and I guess Patton etc) as few people change their minds about their opinions - however it's such fun to argue :)

Imo Patton was a bit like the M4 (Sherman) Tank as both were overated and caused more loss of life than was really necessary - but viable alternatives were scarce at the time I guess.

As for Slim, few could argue with Louis as Slim made very few cock ups, and Zhukov has always been my fav Russian General.
 
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