disagree...Rommel is included in the list and the man who stopped then defeated him(Monty) was middle tier? ...he was very methodical, a significant presence during the war
Wrong, wyly... the Father of Blitzkrieg was Carl von Klausewitz: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_von_Clausewitz Heinz Guderian was a superb commander of tank forces, and he came very close to capturing Moscow, but neither he nor any other German in World War II pioneered the concept of Blitzkrieg ("lightning war").
you're being silly...Blitzkrieg is defined by dedicated armored divisions with superior command and control, wanna explain to us how Clausewitz used armor and radio communications that he never had...
Wrong. There was no such thing as Blitzkrieg. It wasn't a doctrine. The Germans didn't call anything Blitzkrieg. In fact, they found the Allied use of the term to be highly amusing.
The best execution of Blitzkrieg was by the Israelis in the Six Day War. It seems Blitzkrieg can only "break down" when an area is too vast. Adequate forces and a limited geography seem to be required for a successful Blitzkrieg "war". That may be why Eisenhower insisted on the Broad Front approach, seemingly the opposite of Blitzkrieg. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Doesn't that include air and infantry and artillery too? It may be "my bad" because I read "armored divisions" as = to tanks only. Moi I vote for Moshe Dayan. R.I.P. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moshe_Dayan
Regardless of the historical status of "blitzkrieg," it's been absorbed to become an essential military tactic. Schwarzkopf did something similar in the Gulf War when he pursued the fleeing Iraqis. Re Moshe Dayan, he may have been a great general, but it's hard to know because he fought against inferior forces. Or perhaps he just made them seem inferior.
Numbers can weigh in the favor of "inferior forces", and they had numbers like a land war in Asia. Many Western military analyst did not believe the Israeli forces could stand up to the forces facing it. At that time Israeli weapons were either home made or of limited importation. France sold their Mirage jets at inflated prices because Israel was not able to purchase from America or the USSR, etc. Czechoslovakia was a source of smaller hardware. Remember, Israel was NOT America's best buddy in the Middle East until after this war. And for all its' history, NIXON was the most Pro Israel president. For some reason, people seem to think there was always a warm fuzzy nurturing relationship between the American government and Israel. There was not. Truman - Yes, limited to recognition Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, - NO NIXON - the most Ford - D'oh Carter + - Reagan - I do believe Yes, although I am not certain. Bush - NO Clinton - milder No Bush Jr - No Obama - No Way ! But all the negatives after LBJ were not as isolating as those negatives of Ike, JFK & LBJ. Using Blitzkrieg tactics Dayan was able to remove the threat of numerically superior forces on all borders. How numerically? I believe it was beyond 10 : 1. Even if the oppositions weapons where a generation older, and they were NOT, 10 : 1 is a significant balancing consideration. Off topic to WW2 Just an example of Blitzkrieg. My vote for WW2 remains with McAuliffe for his ability to adapt then command to victory. Moving that artillery around so it seemed like more and harder to location fix was pretty cool. Moi
Like I wrote, maybe Dayan made Israel's enemies just seem inferior. That's actually bad, because we can't assume there will always be a Dayan to protect Israel. I'm sure Israel is aware of its need to create a sustainable advantage. I heard on radio that Saudi Arabia is trying to buy nukes from Pakistan, presumably to protect itself from a nuclear Iran. Regardless of Saudi motives, that destabilizes the region and threatens Israel.
No, wyly, it is futile to argue the point about armor and radio communications. At issue was your statement that General Guderian was the "Father of the Blitzkrieg", but, in fact, it was Carl von Clausewitz, as I said. The whole idea of "lightning war" was dramatically, and tactically, different from anything that large European armies had used prior to the Nineteenth Century. As von Clausewitz developed it, it involved highly mobile horse cavalry, artillery, and, of course, infantry, and was strikingly different from the modality of marching large formations of elegantly-costumed men onto an open field for what amounted to an exercise in ritualized slaughter. I'm not a towering Guderian "scholar", but I've read his book, "Panzer Leader", as well as a superb book about him by biographer Kenneth Macksey, "Guderian: Panzer General". Make no mistake, his accomplishments against the Soviet forces with 2nd Panzer Gruppe were truly amazing, as were his earlier triumphs against French adversaries when the Wehrmacht nearly drove the British Expeditionary Force into the sea.... Anyway, I'm certainly not trying to take anything away from this brilliant and effective field commander. Indeed, if Hitler hadn't turned against Guderian, and let him call all of his own shots in Russia, it is very possible that he would have taken Moscow. And THAT, even more than a German victory in Stalingrad, would have sealed the fate of Josef Stalin and Soviet Communism.... Cheers!
More dangerous than it is right now? Doubtful. China's been funding and backing our enemies since the Korean War. Russia has been doing this for about the same period of time. Let's see... the Atom bomb in Hiroshima killed about 60-70,000 people. Radiation reached about 100,000 others. The Atom bomb in Nagasaki killed about 40,000 people. Pretty striking numbers for two bombs, but you'd be wrong about "millions more people dead today." We'd have saved millions, but yes, probably killed hundreds of thousands. The Atom bombs stopped the war. They would have halted the Soviets and again China. We probably wouldn't have had a Cold War and Communism would have died 30-40 years earlier. Tens, maybe hundreds of millions of people saved vs hundreds of thousands killed? - - - Updated - - - Exactly!
I am tired of your selective counting. Picking one source vs a load of the others says it all. Stop being so butthurt, German fanboy. And, for the last time, I am making you a favour. http://www.thefreedictionary.com/irreplaceable ir·re·place·a·ble (r-pls-bl) adj. Impossible to replace Dead=cannot be replaced; POWs=cannot be replaced; Wounded with heavy injures=cannot be replaced. That is all. GТFO now. Oh, now that is what they call a "white trash". States didn't have a mean to deliver the bombs, nor they could produce them in sufficient numbers. I guess that "war" would end up pretty quick with those Murican boys in Europe having their heads blown off. End of story.
Right... because the United States is such a horrible force for evil in the world. We only come to everyone's aid at a moment's notice, while we go ignored when we have our own tragedies at home.
"A 'white trash'" eh? Ahh yes, from someone that glorifies the KGB and lives in Russia. Got it... you're a product of the Soviet-style educational system, where an iron curtain exists in every school. You think you're free, but your vote hasn't counted since... ever.
Colonel Paul W. Tibbets, Jr., Commander of the 509th composite group. Tibbets had 15 Boeing Superfortresses and 1,800 men, and shaped them into a self-contained, secret outfit specializing in dropping atomic bombs. An atomic bomb paired first with a long range bomber later, with a ballistic missile proved the theory of pre-war airpower strategists. Modern warfare was never the same after that.
yeah... earlier tactics had tanks supporting infantry, Guderian reversed it...at the outbreak on the western front in ww2 the french and british still used their tanks in a scattered method while the germans concentrated them...
MacArthur gets a lot of criticism, he always had many detractors throughout his career.....like most historic figures. Any objective observer could only conclude that MacArthur was a brilliant strategist, despite his many personality foibles.
what is futile is your attempts to go of an a tangent moving goalposts as you go...the topic is ww2 generals/leaders and guderian revolutionized the use of mechanized warfare, mechanized warfare that did not exist in Clausewitz's day...if I were to follow your diversion Genghis Khan invented blitzkrieg, and if need be I dig earlier examples than that as well...breaking through enemy lines and encircling them is not new doing it with armor was...
I guess nobody cares what product of Land-of-Flee-Bald Eagle-on-the-avatar education system fanboy thinks. But keep writing the right posts. Big Brother...ugh...meant to say NSA is watching how you love them.
At the time, Hitler still thought he and the Brits made natural allies. Turns out he was wrong, especially about the monger Churchill, but he couldn't have known it at the time.
I'm well aware of how bitter Australians were at being commanded by MacArthur. Unfortunate that there were no Australian generals available who had the expertise to handle a theater level command.
lol, I have no delusions about the ever-expansive government that we have in the USA. I ask you, however... what has the Bald Eagle (a symbol of freedom) ever done to the American people? Also, my apologies for missing your argument after your insult. The Soviets and the Chinese would have been stopped in their tracks with probably 2 bombs - maybe 4. One in Moscow and another in Beijing (obviously at different times in our history). Hell, had we stopped the expansion of the Soviet Union, China may never have been a problem at all. That being said... we had the means to deliver them to Japan. Why wouldn't we have the means to deliver them to Russia?
