Originally Posted by godofthunder9010

Yeah, that's the one! Anyways, Allied commanders vs German commanders ... well the Germans are at a whole different level. If you had a brutally honest list of the top 20 battlefield commanders in World War II, you'd be hard pressed to get any allied commander to land on that list.

EDIT: Allow me to elaborate on the above. Take the best and brightest generals from wherever you like in World War II and give each of them 100,000 men, 1,000 tanks, 1,000 aircraft and 3,000 artillery pieces. The following Generals would never lose to ANY allied commander under such circumstances:
Heinz Guderian
Eric Manstein
Fedor von Bock
Erwin Rommel
Sepp Dietrich
Walter Model
Herman Hoth
Hans von Kluge
Ewald von Kliest

naw, there's just too many to list, I give up.

What a ludicrous thing to say.

Show me some evidence that my statement is "ludicrous" if you don't mind. Or at the very least, elaborate a little bit.

I'm willing to concede that Montgomery was likely within the top 10 battlefield commanders of the Allied powers. As I say, he's not a BAD commander. I'm more than happy to concede that D-day has to count as substantial points in his favor. The US and UK were very lucky to have pulled it off at all. Miraculous luck and Hitler were the giant factors in averting catastrophe. Otherwise the surviving remains of the defeated forces of a failed Overlord would have been swimming back to England. I was under the impression that he was not in command of all allied forces for Overlord, but perhaps I was mistaken.

Monty argued against Overlord though, and that's points against him to be fair.

In all of his victories that I am aware of, he always had numerical superiorty in all categories and usually a very substantial one. For that reason, I cannot see clasifying him as "One of the Greatest Generals of All-Time". He did what needed to be done ... usually later that I think he ought. Many people try to argue that he IS one of the greatest ever. That's a point I'm not willing to concede as I can't think of anything to be overwhelmingly impressed over.

Much discussion around European theater. What about Pacific/Asian Theater?

I just kind of tripping that most of the WWII action, atrocities or battles were not mentioned. I mean not just this topic but many others. In the end, I still think soldiers made the differences.

But I do agree, the German Generals did possess great talents, Sepp and Erwin are my top choices.

I'll always admire Heinz Guderian. I consider him unequalled in implementing his own creation: Blitzkrieg. For the fact that is was his concept to begin with. The fact that he trained the Panzergruppen from the early 1930's with whatever he could lay his hands on. Like many great geniuses in history, he was never given his full dues for everything he accomplished.

But all of this is Off-Topic. The thread is about Montgomery. I'm working on researching more about the Sino-Japanese front - one of the the most important and one that is given the least press unfortunately.

I wonder why should Sepp Dietrich be ranked amongst those great german generals/field marsharls... Unless you consider a great commanding ability to destroy pacific italian villages as Marzabotto, setting them on fire and killing all his inhabitants (the only ones spared were those who didn't were there), or the losing of Vienna a daring tactic, or getting stuck on Ardennes just because tanks are not the best racers on snowy and muddy roads...

We are discussing talent, not attrocities. In talent, he's better than anything the Allies had. If you want to decide who is a brilliant military commander and who is not, attrocities don't enter into it, but certainly reflect on the person's moral character. Moral character is not the topic at hand.

we were discussing monty, not the German High-Command....

By point was, if someone wants to rate Field Marshall Montgomery as "One of the Greatest Military Leaders of All-Time", then its pure nonsense. There is a very large list of German generals that, all things being equal, would have beat the crap out of him. So ... how is he "One of the Greatest Military Leaders of All-Time" then? He's not even one of the 10 best of his own era!

Maybe not one of the greatest of all time, but definetly not a poor one eihter.

Yep, that's what I've said all along.