T1B

...throughout history...

1. von Manstein
2. Gaius Marius
3. Frederick II

Honourable mention: Georgy Zhukov

1. George Washington
2. Omar Bradley
3. Robert E Lee

I don't take kindly to generals, but I have been known to take orders from Colonel Sanders.

Well, I did work for General Dynamics for a period of time. Never got to fly an F-16 though. Nor drive an electric boat.

I do think very highly of General Electric engines and while I am not a car guy at all, it would be cool to drive the General Lee.

1. General Thaddeus E. "Thunderbolt" Ross
2. General M. Bison
3. General Buck Turgidson

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote: 2. General M. Bison

back, back + down, down, down + forward, forward + punch

There are great captains I admire but would want no part of their campaigns on a personal level.

The three I would sign up for are:

P.C. Scipio 'Africanus'
Sun Tzu
Tokugawa Ieyasu

Martyred wrote:

MgoBlue-LightSpecial wrote: 2. General M. Bison

back, back + down, down, down + forward, forward + punch

pfffft

sin,

Yin Sun Sin-never defeated in a naval battle
Hannibal-all the subtlety of a 12 ga. shotgun
Erwin Rommel-did more with less than than almost anybody a brilliant tactical combatant


Sun Tzu probably the greatest military tactician ever

Felix wrote:Yin Sun Sin-never defeated in a naval battle

Yi Sun-Sin, the Korean Nelson. I would dock him a couple points for strength of schedule. The Japs had absolutely no naval experience or tradition whatsoever at that point. Still he delivered some stunning beatdowns against very long odds.

One of the main reasons I chose Tokugawa was that he was wise enough to avoid participation in the Korean fiasco.

Hannibal-all the subtlety of a 12 ga. shotgun

He was the second best tactician of his era but a pitiful engineer and worse strategist. He also failed to understand the political considerations which govern warfare and, consequently, had the indignity of getting whipped out his sandals by the most brilliant commander ever produced by Rome: Scipio Africanus.

General apathy.

Papa Willie wrote:General Barry Fucking Sanders.

He may be starting for Stanford this fall. Hopefully he'll break off a few 80+ yard sprints.

Papa Willie wrote:General Barry Fucking Sanders.

You spelled Harland wrong.

Oh, and he's only a colonel...

Character men who worked miracles, but always got the short end of the stick

Sir Isaac Brock
Johannes Blaskowitz
Heinz Guderian

Generals I'd get shot for deserting from

Mark Clark
Douglas MacArthur
Douglas Haig

not even a mention for Eisenhower?

despite hating most everything about Kansas, I Like Ike.

Gotta rack Gen.Brock a real leader of men, although it caught up with him at the Battle of Queenstown Heights. Brockville is a nice little town, up river from MrsO's old home town of Prescott.
Wags, Ike was quite the organizer, but somehow I don't think he did much in the area of actual battle plans.

I don't even know if was a general, but Doolittle.

Gen Eisenhower,
Chief Tecumseh

Wolfman wrote: Brockville is a nice little town, up river from MrsO's old home town of Prescott.

I'd imagine you've been to Kingston then, next time pop in to Fort Henry, marvelous place.

Wolfman wrote: Wags, Ike was quite the organizer, but somehow I don't think he did much in the area of actual battle plans.

:?

Who was it then, who planned the invasion of Normandy?

Or did Ike simply "organize" that while allowing Patton to do the "actual battle plans"?

I guess that "Supreme Allied Commander" of European forces was just a showy title Roosevelt conferred on him for no other reason than he told Churchill to go fuck himself if he didn't play by his rules.

Wolfman wrote: Wags, Ike was quite the organizer, but somehow I don't think he did much in the area of actual battle plans.

Bullshit. Ike looked that mother fucker Khruschev in the eye and never blinked. He had one hand behind his back with a fucking club ready to hit him over the head with and the other hand with his finger on the nuke trigger ready to fry Mother Russia and the rest of the SU.

He probably was the one who would have presided over a nuke WW III.

Ike was an organizational genius and very good at getting all the allies to get along. He was not known as a tactical guy simply because that wasn't his job. I suspect he would have been fine at it being a fairly sharp mofo.

I suspect Rommel didn't understand the difference between organizer and tactician when Ike routed his ass from North Africa.

Neither did Roosevelt, apparently, thus putting him in charge in Europe over the likes of Marshall.

War Wagon wrote:I suspect Rommel didn't understand the difference between organizer and tactician when Ike routed his ass from North Africa.

Neither did Roosevelt, apparently, thus putting him in charge in Europe over the likes of Marshall.

Marshall was actually senior to Ike, but he was back in DC. As for why Rommel got runned from North Africa, I suspect it might have had a thing or two to do with a decent chunk of his resources being diverted to the eastern front where things were going to shit. Not saying that Ike wasn't a great general. He was the perfect man for the role he was assigned.

Derron wrote: Bullshit. Ike looked that mother fucker Khruschev in the eye and never blinked. He had one hand behind his back with a fucking club ready to hit him over the head with and the other hand with his finger on the nuke trigger ready to fry Mother Russia and the rest of the SU.

He probably was the one who would have presided over a nuke WW III.

Yes, I'm sure. The one who warned against the Military Industrial Complex. Ready to wage WW3.

Idiot.

Derron wrote:He had one hand behind his back with a fucking club ready to hit him over the head with and the other hand with his finger on the nuke trigger ready to fry Mother Russia and the rest of the SU.

Sometimes you say jaw-droppingly retarded things.

This is one of those times.

War Wagon wrote:

Wolfman wrote: Wags, Ike was quite the organizer, but somehow I don't think he did much in the area of actual battle plans.

:?

Who was it then, who planned the invasion of Normandy?

Frederick Morgan did most of the planning for D Day.

Patton had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with D Day except as a decoy. He was still on Ike's shit list for his meltdown in Sicily. 3rd Army wasn't activated until the August '44 breakout.

War Wagon wrote:I suspect Rommel didn't understand the difference between organizer and tactician when Ike routed his ass from North Africa.

Uh, no. Montgomery did most of the heavy lifting on that score. Rommel kicked us in the balls at Kasserine Pass and then left North Africa for good shortly afterwards.

Derron wrote:I don't even know if was a general, but Doolittle.

Yeah, he was. You would have to be out of your fucking mind to want to fly B-17s into Germany, though.

Dr_Phibes wrote:Generals I'd get shot for deserting from

Mark Clark
Douglas MacArthur
Douglas Haig

I get Clark and Haig but MacArthur doesn't deserve that rap. He was meticulous in planning and avoided unnecessary combat.

From what I recall in history. MacArthur thought it was crazy to waste all those Marines in that island hopping meat grinder. He was right I believe. They should have simply cut off Jap supply lines and let those poor bastards on Iwo Jima and the other islands starve.
Mac's Inchon encirclement could have ended the Korean War. He either was given lousy intel later on about the PRC Army or he screwed up royally. Still think if Truman had listened to him there never would have been a North Korea. Just one man's opinion.

Probably personal dislike, everything from 'Dugout Doug' to his mother dressing him like a girl till he was 14 or whatever it was. His later years strike me as decision making from bloodlust or bitterness, he'd lost the plot by then and took his criticism personally - and reacted like a child without regard for consequences of his actions.

mvscal wrote: P.C. Scipio 'Africanus'

knew of him only by name, but after reading his biographical information, I'd tend to agree that not only was he a brilliant strategist, but also possessed the intestinal fortitude to the tell the Roman hierarchy they were fucking cowards and threatened to kill them all if they surrendered to Hannibal (which they were considering at the time).....a leader with dignity who found it counterproductive to mercilessly slaughter his enemies.....the men he commanded recognized that not only was he a great military tactician, but he was an honorable man which instilled great loyalty to those he commanded......a very impressive military leader

Dr_Phibes wrote:I'd imagine you've been to Kingston then, next time pop in to Fort Henry, marvelous place.

My parents used to make Fort Henry a regular part of our yearly Canadian side of the 1000 Islands vacation experience along with Upper Canada Village, Hill Tower and Gananoque. In another year or two I want to get my little boy up there for a visit. Good times.

BSmack wrote: My parents used to make Fort Henry a regular part of our yearly Canadian side of the 1000 Islands vacation experience along with Upper Canada Village, Hill Tower and Gananoque. In another year or two I want to get my little boy up there for a visit. Good times.

It's fantastic in that it's perfecly preserved. As an historical city, it's brilliant - but it's got this underlying creepiness in that it's too perfect, everyone you meet is like a caricature. It's a government town.

The southern side of the river there is better, it's got scenery in depth - north of the 401 is desolate. It would make a great trip, I've done it but never with like-minded people. Stumbling around Saratoga drinking a hangover away gets weird when you hear volleys of gunfire, 'oh shit, I'm in the States' turns out to be a battle re-enactment.

Dr_Phibes wrote:It's fantastic in that it's perfecly preserved. As an historical city, it's brilliant - but it's got this underlying creepiness in that it's too perfect, everyone you meet is like a caricature. It's a government town.

The southern side of the river there is better, it's got scenery in depth - north of the 401 is desolate. It would make a great trip, I've done it but never with like-minded people. Stumbling around Saratoga drinking a hangover away gets weird when you hear volleys of gunfire, 'oh shit, I'm in the States' turns out to be a battle re-enactment.

Funny you should mention a hangover and Kingston in the same post. One of the most epic nights of drink and insanity in my life came in Kingston on New Years Eve 1986. Included in the festivities were more than a few clubs in Kingston, a drunken foray into a closed restaurant in which some silverware was pilfered for our hotel room for reason none of us remember, some tossing of empty beer bottles from the hotel balcony into the empty hotel pool/neighboring street, some hotel room destruction and a drunken brawl with the organizer of the trip over said hotel room damage.

The net result of the brawl was that my best friend and I decided to head back to Syracuse to crash at his parents house. Of course since we were completely shitfaced AND damn near broke, we made the "responsible" choice to drive to the harbor area in search of a public parking spot as to sober up for a few hours. It was there that we witnessed some wankers climbing on a statue of one of your Canadian heroes. And 10 minutes later, said wankers being carted off by the local constabulary.

Some hours later we made our way back up the 401 to the 1000 Islands Bridge in my pimping Olds Delta 88 with the 350 engine. Amazingly the Customs agents didn't give me any hassle and we made it back the the metro Syracuse area before sunrise. I haven't been back to Kingston since.

But yea, it would be nice to so some fort/battle site tours with someone who cares. My wife could give two shits about forts and battles.

I need to check out some of the historic fort/battles sites up in that frozen wasteland someday. See what the commentary about how they drove off the southern rebel hordes goes like.

I have been to Quebec city (beautiful place) and Montreal (somewhat less beautiful). In both places I read all sorts of stuff about how the brits runned the frenchies well over 2 centuries ago, or was it 3? Which leads to the question, why haven't those fukks picked up the language of their conquerors yet?

smackaholic wrote:I need to check out some of the historic fort/battles sites up in that frozen wasteland someday. See what the commentary about how they drove off the southern rebel hordes goes like.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_ ... of_Abraham

If Montcalm had won the day, we'd probably be doing this in French. Then again, maybe not. Still it was a turning point in history.