Talented German commanders.

The concern in re-evaluating Guderian is that we may go to far in adjusting his contribution, I do not think he was a bad commander and his input into operation Fall Gelb alone is enough to put him in the list of talented commanders.

But it is very obvious that he is a man that wrote his own reputation (as did many others so he is not alone there) and like Manstein he was not enthusiastic about accepting critique of his performance.

As for my comment selecting Kluge and Rommel well it is well known that he did not see eye to eye with von Kluge yet there is little evidence to suggest Kluge reciprocated those views.
Rommel on the other hand did not appear critical of Guderian yet Guderian did once say of Rommel "His problem is that he has to have everything his own way" and the two clearly had different views on the defense of France.
 
Well as Kluge did not survive the war we don't have the benefit of his viewpoint. The evidence that does exist suggests that him and Guderian did not get on. Kluge was a methodical, careful commander who probably would have seen Guderian's armoured thrusts far ahead of supporting infantry as reckless.

As for Rommel's opinions on the defence of France we've discussed this previously and did not reach any agreement. Rundstedt and Schweppenburg also disagreed with Rommel so I don't think that makes a strong case for Rommel being a particular opponent of Guderian.
 
Michael Wittmann

Wittman was one of the wars top tank aces with I believe over a 100 kills personally most in Russia some in France where he meet his end. However he only led a small tactical group and was not a General or Field Marshal so his command was limited to a handful of armed vehicles and support troops
 
Manstein

Manstein was the brains behind the attack on west in 1940 by surprising the allies by cutting though the Ardennes forest. To cut them into 2 ½ half’s. He and Gurderion devised the Blitzkrieg tactics for the invasion of the west. Which Hitler embraced. Manstein saved the army group that would have been trapped in the Caucuses effectively preventing another Stalingrad. Then after a successful Soviet counter attract in the winter of 43 he used his mobile defenses tactics (to avoid animation) and dealt the Soviets the last major defeat at Kharkov and Belgorod. This left the Red army anxious about the upcoming summer. Hitler then insisted Citadel and as Manstein put it, he felt like he was fighting 2 enemies the Red army and Hitler. Manstein correctly stated that Hitler waited too long and lost the initiate and lost Kurst by a small margin. His prowess on how to overcome the Russians with lesser forces lead to his being appointed to a major consultant position for NATO.
 
Wittman was one of the wars top tank aces with I believe over a 100 kills personally most in Russia some in France where he meet his end. However he only led a small tactical group and was not a General or Field Marshal so his command was limited to a handful of armed vehicles and support troops


Lets also not forget that Wittmann (138) was the 5th highest German tank ace behind, Knispel (168), Schroif (161), Carius (150) and Bolter (144).

However as the question only asks for talented German commanders I guess any one that commanded anything applies.
 
Manstein was the brains behind the attack on west in 1940 by surprising the allies by cutting though the Ardennes forest. To cut them into 2 ½ half’s. He and Gurderion devised the Blitzkrieg tactics for the invasion of the west. Which Hitler embraced. Manstein saved the army group that would have been trapped in the Caucuses effectively preventing another Stalingrad. Then after a successful Soviet counter attract in the winter of 43 he used his mobile defenses tactics (to avoid animation) and dealt the Soviets the last major defeat at Kharkov and Belgorod. This left the Red army anxious about the upcoming summer. Hitler then insisted Citadel and as Manstein put it, he felt like he was fighting 2 enemies the Red army and Hitler. Manstein correctly stated that Hitler waited too long and lost the initiate and lost Kurst by a small margin. His prowess on how to overcome the Russians with lesser forces lead to his being appointed to a major consultant position for NATO.


There was an ocean of difference between what Manstein said and what Manstein did .
 
Actually Manstein was somewhat composed

There was an ocean of difference between what Manstein said and what Manstein did .

How do you figure this? What's the proof? Manstein as I understand it was somewhat composed and didn't unnecessary draw attention to himself. Even the allies admired him for his composure and professionalism under pressure. His man fault was he did get involved in some war crimes in the USSR by appropriating food stocks from the locals basically leaving them to stave. However everyone has an opinion.
 
Of course,you are joking ,it's All Fools Day:lol:

Manstein did as the other defeated German generals : claiming the victories and blaming Hitler for the defeats.
 
Manstein was the brains behind the attack on west in 1940 by surprising the allies by cutting though the Ardennes forest. To cut them into 2 ½ half’s. He and Gurderion devised the Blitzkrieg tactics for the invasion of the west. Which Hitler embraced. Manstein saved the army group that would have been trapped in the Caucuses effectively preventing another Stalingrad. Then after a successful Soviet counter attract in the winter of 43 he used his mobile defenses tactics (to avoid animation) and dealt the Soviets the last major defeat at Kharkov and Belgorod. This left the Red army anxious about the upcoming summer. Hitler then insisted Citadel and as Manstein put it, he felt like he was fighting 2 enemies the Red army and Hitler. Manstein correctly stated that Hitler waited too long and lost the initiate and lost Kurst by a small margin. His prowess on how to overcome the Russians with lesser forces lead to his being appointed to a major consultant position for NATO.

1)He did not prevent another Stalingrad

2)Hitler did not insist on Citadelle,but the OKH (Zeitzler)

3) Kursk was not lost by a small margin : the Germans had asmuch chance to win Citadelle,as the former governor of Alaska has to become president of the US.

4)When did he overcome the Russians with less forces ?

5)Manstein as a major consultant for Nato ? :eek:
 
I Agree

I wont argue with Manstein but I would like to give an honorable mention to two others that probably will not be mentioned otherwise.

1. Hermann Hoth the job he did with the 4th Panzer Army at Kursk and in the attempt to relieve the 6th Army at Stalingrad was incredible given the conditions.

2. Gotthard Heinrici, I think he was a very competent defensive commander as shown outside Moscow (41/42) and at Seelow Heights (45).

The tactics at the Seelow Height was brilliant. Zuchov was caught off guard completely and paid a heavy price despite the > 3:1 odds. Heinrici deserves much credit for this action.
 
I think we could back and forth forever on this one. I like the April fools day answer rather than arguement
 
Tigers

I doubt the wisdom for the Germans of producing in 1943 and the PzIV,and the Panther,and the Tiger (and more than 10 variants of those).The point also is than only few Tigers were produced (only 130 were present in Normandy) and that only a small % was operational .

All varieties of Tiger Tanks including King Tiger produced came to only ~2000 Tanks during the duration of the war. Consider the Soviets produced at least 55,000 T-34's and the Americans produced > 50,000 Sherman’s (although some of these went to the Pacific theater). I think quantity beat quality especially since the Tigers never completely got over their mechanical concerns. However they were a presence on the battle field just not enough of them.
 
It is hard to say whether the Tiger was a good or bad investment, I would suggest that if http://www.alanhamby.com/losses.shtml is correct and the Tigers had close to a 6 to 1 kill/loss record they may have been better off focusing on the Tiger alone.

My personal belief is that from 1944 onwards the PzKpfwIV should have been reconstructed into the Sd.Kfz. 162 and Germany focused solely on the PzKpfwV Panther as its fighting tank scrapping both the PzKpfwVI and VI Ausf B
 
One you don't hear much about was a German tank destroyer the StuG. The Red army and the Allied army's suffered high losses as a result of this armored vehicle until the end of 43-early 44. The main factories where it was made were destroyed as a result of allied bombing and production fell. They supposedly made over 10000 of these. This was a simpler design more well suited to mass production.
 
Yes and no

Tank production(without Jagdpanzer)

42:2476

43:5663

44:7795

45:956


StuG

42:789

43:3042

44:4999

45:988

Sturmartillerie (StuH)

42:34

43:270

44:1209

45:112

In 1945 (only) the production of the StuG was going down,as was the production of the Tanks and Sturmartillerie.And,it is questionable that the cause was the allied air attacks .

The decrease of the StuG production in 1945 was relatively less than that of the panzer production :

panzer: 1944 : 7800; 1945 (converted to one year) : 3000 =38 %

StuG : 1944 : 5000 ; 1944 : (also converted) : 3000 = 60 %
 
The StuG factories were bombed at the end of 43 to the point where production fell by > 90 %. I’m much opposed to all Nazi Germany stood for. However their wartime economy must be credited for its ability to bounce back from the devastating allied bombing.
I don’t remember the exact numbers but from 43 on, often > 1000 bombers a day rained carnage on German industry and it’s civilians as well. 140,000 allied airmen died in the European theater, the lions share in bombing raids. For every Ton of bombs that feel on England > 100 Tons of bombs fell on Germany. Yes they weren’t as accurate as the modern B-1B Lancer.
However they carried large payloads and there were 100’s of them dropping bombs simultaneously on a given target. The rational was get close enough to the target and saturates the area with bombs and you will damage - destroy the target.
The Germans often spread production to smaller plants some hidden in the countryside, etc. For this Speer was quite a genius. Despite the bombing the Germans production continued to increase well trough 44. One can only wonder without the allied bombing how much more equipment they would have produced.
 
The StuG factories were bombed at the end of 43 to the point where production fell by > 90 %. I’m much opposed to all Nazi Germany stood for. However their wartime economy must be credited for its ability to bounce back from the devastating allied bombing.
I don’t remember the exact numbers but from 43 on, often > 1000 bombers a day rained carnage on German industry and it’s civilians as well. 140,000 allied airmen died in the European theater, the lions share in bombing raids. For every Ton of bombs that feel on England > 100 Tons of bombs fell on Germany. Yes they weren’t as accurate as the modern B-1B Lancer.
However they carried large payloads and there were 100’s of them dropping bombs simultaneously on a given target. The rational was get close enough to the target and saturates the area with bombs and you will damage - destroy the target.
The Germans often spread production to smaller plants some hidden in the countryside, etc. For this Speer was quite a genius. Despite the bombing the Germans production continued to increase well trough 44. One can only wonder without the allied bombing how much more equipment they would have produced.


After 1942 I am not sure there was a lot of value in the StuGs, they were good as artillery support and armour defense in an army going forward but they were not really good enough at either role in an army in retreat.

My belief is that they also should have been scrapped as part of an effort to streamline production thereby increasing production of vehicles they desperately needed.

I remain somewhat convinced that Pz-IV production should have been converted to the Jagdpanzer IV thus reducing the cost of the Pz-IV in value, raw materials and increased production without reducing its combat effectiveness and they should have focused on building a much smaller force of Panthers, scrapping both the Tiger I and II and instead looking toward the Panther II.

As for the effectiveness of the bomber campaign after the war the Americans carried out a study of the campaign and one of the conclusions they reached was that it may have actually helped improve German production by forcing the dispersal thus making it impossible to stop and less prone to disruption.
 
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Allied Bombing

I’ll have to research the StuG. I thought that it was very widely at Kursk and used even into 44?
This goes against what I've learned concerning the Allied bombing, however it did have the effect you mentioned. It was much to the Germans credit to setup new facilities and move things about rather rapidly. The effect of some raids is hard to deny however: the dams that produced the hydro-electric power, the ball bearing plants and to a certain extent slowing production at the Romanian oil fields.
Bomber Harris Galvanized the people behind their country with his terror tactics, similar to the German bombing and rocket attacks galvanized the British, which may have helped the German efforts.
However another factor from what I understand by late 43, > 80% of the Luftwaffe was removed from Eastern front to fight off the allied air attacks. Leaving them more venerable to Red ground-air attach aircraft.
 
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StuG's

It appears it’s hard to keep track of the wide variety of German armored vehicles produced during the WW2. Perhaps this was a weak point to much diverge, I’ve heard this mentioned. Too many vehicles too many different parts.
Anyways The StuG III AUSF B assault gun was only produced until 1941 and was not that heavily armored. This was corrected in 1942 with the more robust StuG III AUSF G. This was produced into 1945 and ~ 8000 were made. They proved effective in the USSR and fared well in the Kurst operation.
 
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