Your favorite military commanders thoughout history?

[SaintB]

Just a few:
Sun Tzu - If he was a single person that is. He was just the right amount of ruthless for the time and place he was a general and is credited with defeating nations with armies as many as ten times larger than his. He was also smart rnough to record his insights into combat for posterity. Tzu is still the architype that many modern commanders base their strategy off of.

Scipio Africanus - They named Africa after him for crying out loud!

Oda Nobunaga - He had the insight to change the way war was waged in Japan, in a nation so steeped in tradition that itself is an accomplishment. He also unified Japan under a single government that lasted ~200 years.

Alexander - There is no denying his military acumen.

Julius Ceaser - He built Rome into one of the greatest empires of all time in no small way through his sound tactics in battle.

William T. Sherman - His march to the Atlantic was the final straw that broke the moral of the Confederacy in the US Civil War. Some demonize him but he personally accorded himself and most of his army very well even as they destroyed the countryside.

[Blackledge]

Scipio Africanus - They named Africa after him for crying out loud!

Did they? I was under the impression is was the other way around.

[Trollgaard]

Scipio Africanus - They named Africa after him for crying out loud!

Did they? I was under the impression is was the other way around.

Correct.

[The Godly Nations]

Just a few:
Sun Tzu - If he was a single person that is. He was just the right amount of ruthless for the time and place he was a general and is credited with defeating nations with armies as many as ten times larger than his. He was also smart rnough to record his insights into combat for posterity. Tzu is still the architype that many modern commanders base their strategy off of.

He was a theoretician, not a commander.

Scipio Africanus - They named Africa after him for crying out loud!

No, he was originally Publius Cornelius Scipio, they attached Africanus due to his victory over the african Carthaginian.

Oda Nobunaga - He had the insight to change the way war was waged in Japan, in a nation so steeped in tradition that itself is an accomplishment. He also unified Japan under a single government that lasted ~200 years.

Most warlords adopted Western weaponry, the Uesugi clan, the Takeda clan, so on so forth. Also, it was not his government that lasted until the Meiji restoration...it was the government created by his underling, Tokugawa.

Alexander - There is no denying his military acumen.

I deny it.

Julius Ceaser - He built Rome into one of the greatest empires of all time in no small way through his sound tactics in battle.

His campaign against the Gauls, or against other Romans?

William T. Sherman - His march to the Atlantic was the final straw that broke the moral of the Confederacy in the US Civil War. Some demonize him but he personally accorded himself and most of his army very well even as they destroyed the countryside.

If inefficient savagry is your cup of tea, then by all mean praise the man who set fire to Atlanta.

[Saint-Thor]

What about Alexander the Great? Or Julius Caesar? Timur the Lame? Genghis Khan? My point is, there are a lot of commanders that you are overlooking.

Or Wellington, who wasn't defeated to the extent of my knowledge, while he defeated Napoleon (with Blucher).

At Waterloo, the French army was not even the shadow of its former self. Wellington fought the remnant of what used to be the Grande Armée. Actually, the Prussians, the Austrians and Russians and to some extent the Spanish guerrillos should get most of the credit. Wellington had basically, what, 15 years to learn from Napoléon's tactic?

[The UK in Exile]

Or Wellington, who wasn't defeated to the extent of my knowledge, while he defeated Napoleon (with Blucher).

At Waterloo, the French army was not even the shadow of its former self. Wellington fought the remnant of what used to be the Grande Armée. Actually, the Prussians, the Austrians and Russians and to some extent the Spanish guerrillos should get most of the credit. Wellington had basically, what, 15 years to learn from Napoléon's tactic?

Yeah, but its not like Wellington's army was his old peninsula army either, plus Napoleon had 6 years to come up with some new tactics.

[OMGeverynameistaken]

Despite the persistent myth that Wellesley "never lost a battle," the truth is that he was defeated several times. They just weren't famous battles. He was defeated by the Mysoreans on at least one occasion, but mostly by the French. He also suffered what Wikipedia likes to refer to as "strategic defeats," such as Quatre Bras.

He never lost a field battle, admittedly to maintain this record he did have to spend quite a lot of time running away, which is not exactly impressive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sultanpet_Tope

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Redinha

Both are fairly minor battles, but they were still field battles which he lost.

At Waterloo, the French army was not even the shadow of its former self. Wellington fought the remnant of what used to be the Grande Armée. Actually, the Prussians, the Austrians and Russians and to some extent the Spanish guerrillos should get most of the credit. Wellington had basically, what, 15 years to learn from Napoléon's tactic?

Yeah, but its not like Wellington's army was his old peninsula army either, plus Napoleon had 6 years to come up with some new tactics.

I think we've already been over how about 3/4 of all the soldiers of every nation at Waterloo were green as grass. By the standards of the era it was really more of a brawl than a battle.

[Shaggai]

Norton I, Emperor of the United States. Because he never lost a battle.

[The UK in Exile]

He never lost a field battle, admittedly to maintain this record he did have to spend quite a lot of time running away, which is not exactly impressive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Sultanpet_Tope

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Redinha

Both are fairly minor battles, but they were still field battles which he lost.

I Generally discount anything below General Officer rank. On the grounds that, especially in the 1800's, you don't have enough freedom to take the blame.

As for Redinha, the end result is that Wellington chases the French out of Portugal 24 hours later than he would have done. If you want to argue about whether its a defeat or not you can, but its one in a series of actions and a "Victory" in this instances means starting the same fight a mile down the road anyway. Napoleon and Soult had exactly the same dramas when they chased the British out of Spain in 1808. I doubt anyone points to them as defeats.

[Warda]

Norton I, Emperor of the United States. Because he never lost a battle.

The Cabbage Emperor defeated the Mongolian hordes with peasants with pitchforks.

[Shaggai]

Norton I, Emperor of the United States. Because he never lost a battle.

The Cabbage Emperor defeated the Mongolian hordes with peasants with pitchforks.

Who? Google has nothing.

[The Huskar Social Union]

The Cabbage Emperor defeated the Mongolian hordes with peasants with pitchforks.

Who? Google has nothing.

Ivaylo of Bulgaria, he led a large peasant uprising and became emperor and then fought several successful campaigns against the Mongols and the Byzantine Empire. But he was ultimately forced into exile by the Mongols and then killed by one of their agents.

His nickname Bardokva means cabbage or something along those lines.

[Shaggai]

Who? Google has nothing.

Ivaylo of Bulgaria, he led a large peasant uprising and became emperor and then fought several successful campaigns against the Mongols and the Byzantine Empire. But he was ultimately forced into exile by the Mongols and then killed by one of their agents.

His nickname Bardokva means cabbage or something along those lines.

Oh, okay. Norton I is still cooler, because he actually never lost.

[The Huskar Social Union]

There are a lot of commanders throughout history that i have loved to study, some of my top favourites would be, in no particular order:

Napoleon Bonaparte.
Georgy Zhukov.
Konstantin rokossovsky
Von Manstein.
Heinz Guderian.
Julius Caeser.
Hannibal Barca.
Genghis Khan

There are a few others i am forgetting at the moment, probably add them later at some point.

[Shove Piggy Shove]

I think we've already been over how about 3/4 of all the soldiers of every nation at Waterloo were green as grass. By the standards of the era it was really more of a brawl than a battle.

Not the French, all of Napoleon's troops for the Hundred Days were veterans of at least one campaign, whereas only 7,000 of the British troops were veterans (at least, according to Wikipedia)

[Hollorous]

Just a few:
Sun Tzu - If he was a single person that is. He was just the right amount of ruthless for the time and place he was a general and is credited with defeating nations with armies as many as ten times larger than his. He was also smart rnough to record his insights into combat for posterity. Tzu is still the architype that many modern commanders base their strategy off of.

He was a theoretician, not a commander.

Scipio Africanus - They named Africa after him for crying out loud!

No, he was originally Publius Cornelius Scipio, they attached Africanus due to his victory over the african Carthaginian.

Oda Nobunaga - He had the insight to change the way war was waged in Japan, in a nation so steeped in tradition that itself is an accomplishment. He also unified Japan under a single government that lasted ~200 years.

Most warlords adopted Western weaponry, the Uesugi clan, the Takeda clan, so on so forth. Also, it was not his government that lasted until the Meiji restoration...it was the government created by his underling, Tokugawa.

Alexander - There is no denying his military acumen.

I deny it.

Julius Ceaser - He built Rome into one of the greatest empires of all time in no small way through his sound tactics in battle.

His campaign against the Gauls, or against other Romans?

William T. Sherman - His march to the Atlantic was the final straw that broke the moral of the Confederacy in the US Civil War. Some demonize him but he personally accorded himself and most of his army very well even as they destroyed the countryside.

If inefficient savagry is your cup of tea, then by all mean praise the man who set fire to Atlanta.

Sherman's campaign wasn't inefficient by any means. He did exactly what he set out to do, with runaway success.

Also, setting American cities ablaze happened a shitload in the 1700 and 1800s. Sherman was just the most famous to do it.

[Hollorous]

I've always found the British commanders in the American Revolutionary War to be interesting fellows. Particular Sir Clinton. He seemed to get the program and had great talent for tactics, but he wasn't given the ball initially. Howe was and he screwed it up by not being aggressive enough. He seems entirely disinterested in his job. Clinton didn't get put in charge until after Saratoga when the war had pretty much gone completely south for the British. Even then, he almost turned things around by conspiring with Benedict Arnold (a deal that went south due to bad decision making by Arnold and Andre) and ultimately the subordinate Cornwallis lost the war when he campaigned too aggressively in the Southern colonies, with his eye on getting himself promoted to the unpopular Clinton's position. I'm surprised the guy didn't have a stroke on the job. I think a great darkly comic film could be made about Clinton trying to run a war that everybody else was either screwing up or shitting all over. "Surrounded by idiots" indeed.

[Evbrus]

General Zhukov and Mao Zedong

[Lydenburg]

William Sherman and Mehmet II, he's the reason the Balkans is such a lovely place.

Mehmet is overrated as hell. He's only on the books because he took a city that was doomed anyroad, and even that he couldn't accomplish without a third of his army being made up of vassals, Christian allies, and mercenaries. An drunken, overweight, pedophile who would have never made it past the first week without the gold to bribe a half-decent siege engineer like Johannes Grant. Why doesn't anybody ever look at Giovanni Giustiniani's record?

[Shaggai]

Oh, and as a serious choice, Suleiman the Magnificent.

[Greed and Death]

Patton, his ability to adapt strategy to overcome for his inferior equipment( American Tanks vs German Tanks.)

Douglas MacArthur, his handling of the New Guinea campaign was brilliant, he did what no one though could be done with less than 300,000 causalities with less than 20,000.

[Starkiller101]

Patton, his ability to adapt strategy to overcome for his inferior equipment( American Tanks vs German Tanks.)

Douglas MacArthur, his handling of the New Guinea campaign was brilliant, he did what no one though could be done with less than 300,000 causalities with less than 20,000.

good for him he was a great commander

[Breadknife]

Mehmet is overrated as hell. He's only on the books because he took a city that was doomed anyroad, and even that he couldn't accomplish without a third of his army being made up of vassals, Christian allies, and mercenaries.

I can't remember if it was Lu Tze, or one of his commentators, but someone mentioned (paraphrasing) another general who did not attempt to take an easy town to capture, by-passing it and accomplishing much harder victories further down the line. Asked about the decision regarding the former he says "If I had succeeded, it would have been to no credit for me; if I had not, I would never have lived it down".

[The Godly Nations]

He was a theoretician, not a commander.



No, he was originally Publius Cornelius Scipio, they attached Africanus due to his victory over the african Carthaginian.



Most warlords adopted Western weaponry, the Uesugi clan, the Takeda clan, so on so forth. Also, it was not his government that lasted until the Meiji restoration...it was the government created by his underling, Tokugawa.



I deny it.



His campaign against the Gauls, or against other Romans?



If inefficient savagry is your cup of tea, then by all mean praise the man who set fire to Atlanta.

Sherman's campaign wasn't inefficient by any means. He did exactly what he set out to do, with runaway success.

Also, setting American cities ablaze happened a shitload in the 1700 and 1800s. Sherman was just the most famous to do it.

What purpose did burning civilian building serve?

[Libertarian California]

John J. Pershing.