What Did German Generals Think of The Allied Generals?

[@HistoryInsideWW2]

Patton vs. Guderian: Who do you think was the true master of armored warfare? 🤔💥 Share your thoughts below 👇

[@romsebrell710]

Non ci sono dubbi sulla risposta........GUDERIAN. PATTON un BULLO a. STELLE E. STRISCIE. Appena sufficiente..

[@Bullet-Tooth-Tony-]

Manstein.

[@howard51723]

Guderian by a mile, he created the concept of lightening war, whilst patton did use his tanks effectively Guderian was still the master

[@Slaktrax]

While Patton was good he had a king-size ego.

[@gzkarr3730]

The answer is YES to both! If that hurts peoples feelings ... then go take some Aspirin!

[@jaygregg4455]

The Germans were defeated primarily by three American generals: General Motors, General Electric, and General Mills.

[@gzkarr3730]

Two of them are now no longer what they were and General Mills ... well.

[@billballbuster7186]

Nothing like the yanks for taking all credit.

[@KyleAndKellen]

And don't forget Ford.

[@jamesteague2152]

@@billballbuster7186 We knew Briton stool alone and were a major reason we all won the war.

[@ashleytidd-w9i]

Well said,and true !

[@lanceash]

I once had a horrible supervisor who wanted to micro-manage every detail, every minute of our shift. In response, I wrote down Patton's quote, "Never tell people how to do things. Tell them what to do and they will surprise you with their ingenuity" on a piece of paper and posted it next to the supervisor's daily assignment sheet. Boy, he didn't like that.

[@brucejedilee5290]

What did he do?

[@lanceash]

@@brucejedilee5290 He would threaten to call the police on people who dared to talk back to him. He made us work overtime every day just so he could work overtime. He was obsessed with overtime and his "career." I used to come back to work after the weekend and ask the others, "Did he work the last 2 days?" "Yes." In this way I kept track of him and found out he once worked over 100 days without a day off. He used to have a meeting with everybody every day about nonsense. He was a liar. I know of at least 3 occasions where he lied either to me directly or he lied to one of his superiors, trying to get out of trouble. One of the other people got him to dead to rights on an EEO charge. They met with an federal arbitrator where it was the other employee's decision as to whether to have him punished or not. He begged her at the meeting not to proceed, so she didn't. Within 2 weeks, he was back to his usual antics with her. At one point, he wanted us to sign in and out when we went to the restroom. Eventually, upper management decided we didn't need a direct supervisor at all. The top 2 senior people, another guy and I, ran the operation after that.

[@jackmatson6634]

@@brucejedilee5290 I imagine he responded how Patton would of responded.

[@bx3556]

@@brucejedilee5290 His boss of course responded with "overwhelming force"

[@Kilo__Bravo]

I did the same thing with the same quote on an email signature after getting ed up with the micro managing. They tried to write me up.

[@rickhouse-ik8bu]

Stalin's purges of the USSR's Red Army in '36-'37 gutted it of senior officers and military planners. Zhukov only survived the purge because he was fighting the Japanese on the borders of Manchuria. The blame for the catastrophic failure of the Red Army to defend the USSR lies with Stalin, not Zhukov.

[@rolotomassi9806]

Germans planted the ideas of a coup that made Stalin do that.

[@Mr_Beaubles]

So who's fault is it now? Lol. It sure seems like they haven't learned a thing since 1945.

[@fposmith]

@@Mr_Beaubles Except how to spy better.

[@MarcIverson]

@@Mr_Beaubles They've already won. It's all over but the crying.

[@judsongaiden9878]

@@MarcIverson Any victory Magog experiences will be short-lived. It won't be too long now before they join Abaddon in the abyss. Hail Ezekiel! Hail Bibi! Ave vindicta! Edit/Disclaimer: Not the people but the state. The upper echelon. The oppressor class, etc.

[@richardbeckenbaugh1805]

Patton read Guderians book as well as Rommels book and modeled his tactics after them. He made a few improvements along the way. So when the German generals thought he was the most like Guderian or Rommel, they were correct.

[@scottydu81]

You magnificent bastard!

[@rizzoforgo865]

Rommel and Guderian: Who are you? Patton: I'm you but American.

[@jamesandjelic7807]

True statement

[@allengreg5447]

When Patton heard that the Germans didn't respect American soldiers because they preferred to use 10,000 artillery shells over losing one man, Patton laughed and said, "Are we expected to apologize to our enemies for not fighting in a way that is most convenient for them?"

[@lucaamoruso2672]

@@allengreg5447 oh, the General Patton. A disgusting war criminal (look up to the massacre of Biscari, Capizzi, Troina etcetera)

[@ronanchristiana.belleza9270]

Also German did the same thing, especially combined arms, i could not even fathom why they even complain in the first place when they do it as well

[@geoarambula139]

I don’t understand discrediting American Generals for imposing industrial might. Military minds understand that logistics win wars.

[@wordragon]

It is great if you have resources, but history teaches us that you have to know where to put them and how to use them to be effective. And, that Patton did when given the chance.

[@manilajohn0182]

That's simply not true. Wars are won by the proper combination of a myriad of factors, and not just one. Your statement is a popular one only because the field of logistics has been underappreciated throughout history by many political and military leaders.

[@jocopowell]

@@manilajohn0182 "Amateurs talk tactics, professionals study logistics” ~ General Omar Bradley. Omaha beach, June 9th, 1944

[@manilajohn0182]

@@jocopowell Largely but not exclusively true. A good example of this is Bradley himself- who believed that Wact Am Rhein was a diversion, and had to be convinced otherwise by an officer with no combat experience at all- Eisenhower.

[@tijojose7966]

Germans considered Soviets to be primitive because they lacked technology/industry. By that logic, the Germans were primitive compared to Americans. Nazis cannot accept their own inferiority, so they pretend that American superior technology/industry is dishonorable.

[@53kenner]

I have no idea how the Germans could assess Patton's strategic abilities given that Eisenhower kept a lock on strategy and Patton's influence was almost entirely tactical.

[@boxsterman77]

Yeah and he only did that because he was mean. It had nothing to do with outrunning the logistics, or causing any vulnerable salient, or working with units on the left and right to ensure coordination, or managing the many demands of the various stakeholders. Eisenhower was a fucking genius in ways people fail to appreciate. To able to do the stakeholder management (read: politics) necessary to keep everyone coordinated and logistics flowing is no easy tasks. Oh what is that they say about the Amateurs and tactics??

[@prof_kaos9341]

And the Allies always had the advantage over the nazis strategically.

[@JohnMinehan-lx9ts]

Really Operational, having an influence on implementing Strategic goals by Tactical means.

[@Kellethorn]

By simply looking at the past and what he had done? "oh, he just took x and advanced in y." It's not that hard?

[@knazibaz]

@@boxsterman77Eisenhower was not perhaps a good tactician, but he was a great organizer who possessed great leadership and managements skills, which was exactly what was needed in his role as SACEUR. His main task was not to get the right units to the right place in the right time - he had people for that. No, his main task was to organize the land, air, and naval forces of the [western] allied powers in Europe and trying to get 16 countries to work together and get 16 different militaries to function as one. That is one hell of a job.

[@douglasstrother6584]

1939-1941: "Blitzkrieg" German-style. 1944-1945: "Blitzkrieg" Allied-style.

[@aztkshorty9138]

Germans hated Allied mobile warfare because it basically meant they would be shelled and bombed all day and shelled more throughout the night. American Strategy was shells over men and this basically caused the German positions to be flattened and dwindled down before American and British troops would even encounter their enemy. Cities were generally left in ruins if the Germans chose to use it as a stronghold. Often time the Germans would literally be forced to give up positions due to straight up attrition rates from Allied artillery. The US Army alone fired around 50,000 shells per day every day until Germany surrendered, this isn't even counting bombs which I really can't find a statistic for.

[@PaulAssmann]

It's really a shame that our america and british brothers, better fought with the soviet communists, instead of on the side with the nation most of their ancestors came from.

[@1tsbag134]

​@@PaulAssmann Englishmen are french haha so funny. Look at your country now, its a islamic mess.

[@MemoristCed]

​@@PaulAssmann But they DID fight alongside Denmark. Holger Danske was a valuable ally.

[@rebelfriend9006]

@@PaulAssmann you know humans came to North America from Siberia, right?

[@arddel]

Dismissing the vast numbers of the Soviets and the abundant resources of the Americans misses the point. The Germans were outnumbered and out-resourced from the start and they knew it. This is the war they chose to fight. They needed to destroy the five million-man Soviet Army in 1941 and capture the Soviet resources to then compete with the overwhelming resources of the US. They failed. The Soviets lost nearly four and a half million of their five million man Army in 1941 but raised even more. The tenacious ability of the Soviets to keep fighting was something the Germans didn't count on. When the Soviets refused to collapse, and the Americans ramped up the war, the Germans were doomed.

[@ronblack7870]

no the war started in 1939 by both the germans and russians as partners . had they stayed partners the outcome may have been different. no eastern front and maybe even support from stalin for hitler . the capitalist west did not think highly of communism so it's likely the soviets would have allied with germany against the west since they allied for soviets to take 1/2 of poland and eastern europe.

[@arddel]

@@ronblack7870 They were never going to stay as partners. "Lebensraum" was as central to Nazi ideology as "Volksgemeinschaft” or "Kulturkampf.” Expecting Hitler not to invade Russia is asking Hitler not be be Hitler, for Nazis not to be Nazis. Stalin renegotiated the Nazi-Soviet trade deal in 1941 on favorable terms to the Germans to buy himself time. He thought he had a year (maybe two) by which time he would be strong enough to attack Germany after it bled itself dry fighting the Brits. Hitler had to attack when he did because time was not on his side. The Soviets and the Brits (plus america) would just get stronger.

[@arddel]

@@ronblack7870 They were never going to stay as partners. "Lebensraum" was as central to Nazi ideology as "Volksgemeinschaft” or "Kulturkampf.” Expecting Hitler not to invade Russia is asking Hitler not be be Hitler, for Nazis not to be Nazis. Stalin renegotiated the Nazi-Soviet trade deal in 1941 on favorable terms to the Germans to buy himself time. He thought he had a year or two by which time he would be strong enough to attack Germany after it bled itself dry fighting the Brits. Hitler had to attack when he did because time was not on his side. The Soviets and the Brits (plus america) would just get stronger.

[@arddel]

@@ronblack7870 They were never going to stay as partners. "Lebensraum" was as central to Nazi ideology as "V*lksgemeinschaft” or "K*lturkampf.” Expecting Hitler not to invade Russia is asking Hitler not be be Hitler, for Nazis not to be Nazis. Stalin renegotiated the Nazi-Soviet trade deal in 1941 on favorable terms to the Germans to buy himself time. He thought he had a year or two by which time he would be strong enough to attack Germany after it bled itself dry fighting the Brits. Hitler had to attack when he did because time was not on his side. The Soviets and the Brits (plus america) would just get stronger.

[@Max15691]

​@@ronblack7870Hitler hated the slavs (much like the jews), and if you read his book, it is clearly specified that he needed the lands to the east, Ukraine, the Caucasus (grain and oil) at least to have the resources for Germany. If he just built a defensive line, and focused on conquering those lands, maybe he would've had a chance. But I don't think the Soviets would've stayed idle.

[@colleenc9286]

Fact is the us supplied ships ,planes, food, trucks, among all other supplies to all allied nations

[@derekweiland1857]

Yep. In the year 1943 alone, the US sent more combat trucks to Russia, then they Russians produced themselves throughout the entirety of the war.

[@lukepepper3949]

Britain also supplied the US, Russia and other allies with supplies.

[@rescue270]

The US fought two different theatres of the war, supplied their own military, plus the militaries of all the Allies, with vehicles, vessels, aircraft, munitions, artillery pieces, medical supplies, battlefield supplies, and most other sorts of provisions; and they did all this in roughly three and a half years! For everyone who says the US did not contribute hugely to the Allied victory, I call that disinformation. I seriously wonder however, if the US could ever pull that off again. The way things are now, I doubt it.

[@Orly90]

@@lukepepper3949 nowhere near what the US supplied though. Any little bit helped, but don't downplay what the US supplied.

[@nickdanger3802]

@@lukepepper3949 1941 December 170 M3 light tanks in North Africa, 108 in the Philippines.

[@capt.stubing5604]

The same theory regarding Patton’s advantage of having the might of American manufacturing applies to some degree to the Soviets. A great deal of their equipment was made in the USA.

[@boxsterman77]

Pattons.

[@jackinthebox301]

I was thinking the same thing. The only reason the Soviets survived were because the US was *heavily* supplementing them with goods, arms, manufacturing equipment, etc. with the Lend-Lease program. The Eastern Front would have looked much different were it not for the US. How different, no one can really know, but it likely would not have been so good for the Soviets.

[@capt.stubing5604]

@@boxsterman77 autocorrect 🤬, corrected.

[@skibbideeskitch9894]

​@@jackinthebox301Most of the foreign equipment in the USSR during 1941-1942 was British. In any case, foreign equipment helped enhance the Rwd Army's offensive capabilities in 1943-1945. It didn't determine who would win outright

[@JohnMinehan-lx9ts]

Transported by the USMM, one of their more impressive (and somewhat forgotten) achievements . . . .

[@jamesmooney8933]

Patton's logistics weren't just because America had more war production. It was Patton's job to get the necessary supplies to the front lines. Patton created the Red Ball Express. The Red Ball Express had a high priority in Patton's 3rd Army. The speedy replenishment of supplies, meant that the 3rd Army became the fastest moving Army in History. Also Patton had 3 battle plans going into battle. The Enemy's Battle Plan ( as he saw the enemy, & his intelligences reports) Next was his battle plan for the battle & last was his battle plan after defending the enemy. Although, Patton did get stalled at the heavily fortified Metz. Patton also co-ordinate his battles with the Army Air Corp. The P47 Thounderbolts would clear the way for the 3rd Army.

[@jamesmooney8933]

@@JeffreyWilliams-dr7qe Patton designed the system

[@jamesmooney8933]

@@JeffreyWilliams-dr7qe You got me. You can't get anything past ypu

[@dennisswaim8210]

Patton drew much criticism for the loss of troops due to his aggressive tactics. He believed that constant movement and pressure against your enemies kept them off balance. Thus reacting to your movements instead of mounting actons against you. A similar philosophy that General Grant used against General Lee and the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Patton thought this resulted in shorting the war and lessening allied casualties. I don't think he was wrong.

[@DeMan59]

Stonewall Jackson fought like this too. That’s why he was Lee’s favorite general.

[@andrewlustfield6079]

@@DeMan59 The difference between them, however, was that Jackson was fighting against incompetent commanders and green troops. And not every battle he fought was a victory. Had he been facing Phil Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley, Jackson would have been in real trouble. Patton, on the other hand, was fighting against seasoned troops in Africa, Sicily, and in France and Belgium and against professional generals and a general staff officer system that was second to none in the world. After the Battle of the Bulge had played out, Germany was spent. They were running a skeleton army starting in 45. So while his rapid advances into Germany and Austria outpaced other allied commanders, the Germans were already shattered. But when you look at it in the long term, however, his rapid advance had strategic implications in the post war -cold war era. Austria was on the western side of the iron curtain. So there is that to consider. Was he a showboat? Without doubt. Was he suited for higher command like Ike, George Marshal and Omar Bradley? Not at all. As an army commander, Patton was in his sweet spot. And opposed to the heavy criticism he sometimes drew, Patton inflicted far more casualties on the Germans than he took, in large part due to his aggressive tactics. In that respect, he and Grant are very similar. As for Guderian and Patton--both were students of JFC Fuller, and his analysis of the battle of Cambrai in 1917. While Guderian is given the credit, there were many commanders in the interwar period who were proponents of armored warfare as a way of returning to mobile warfare. Patton was one of those leaders in the U.S. Charles De Gaulle was another commander in France who was on the cutting edge of armored warfare theory. The big difference was that in other nations, the top brass couldn't be convinced--they were calcified in their opinion that the next great war would be like the last great war. In Germany, Hitler was enamored with Guderian's theories.

[@namei8967]

​@@andrewlustfield6079why do you think Patton not suitable for higher positions? Because he was lacking of strategic capability or because he was no a politician to hold the allies? If you mean the former, you are wrong. He was a good strategist in all means but didn't have the chance to draw on a bigger canvas. If you mean the latter, you are wrong too. Ike, good politican, was praised widely for his role to hold up the British ally, particularly Monty. But he didn't realise it was much UK needed US not the reverse, and Churchill would fire any British general to please US. Because Ike was to soft to Monty, he made many mistakes which prolonged the war half year. If Patton had been in his position, the west allies would have been led by a lion, not by donkeys!

[@andrewlustfield6079]

@@namei8967 Both, to be honest. Clauswitz famously said that "War is a continuation of policy by other means." So war is inherently political. Patton was an excellent combat commander, but his sense of grand strategy didn't account for allies, which were absolutely vital. I really don't have a sense of how well he could have been in cooperating with the navy, either. MacArthur definitely butted heads with Nimitz. My guess is that Patton's personality would get in the way of smooth operations between army and navy if it came to it. Personality can make a person unsuited for higher command. Also, he had a tendency to overshoot his logistics. That's not a good thing in a commander. Bradley was a master of logistics. Ike was also no slouch when it came to logistics, and he was the best person suited to keep a coalition together, which was vital. You really understand that when you read Eisenhower's Crusade in Europe. And when it comes to strategic vision, none of our truly great commanders surpassed George C. Marshal. We really had the right people in the right positions. Even after the war, the Marshal plan to rebuild Europe was brilliant, and laid the groundwork for NATO and us winning the cold war. The only commander we have had who might have had that kind of strategic genius was U.S. Grant, who could see the whole war on every front and in every theater and know how they impacted one another.

[@Trebor74]

If Patton hit a snag the entire invasion could have failed leaving the allies with zero option but withdraw. He was reckless,but lucky.

[@wulfwalker2514]

The only allied general you named was Patton, so we really did not find out what the German generals thought of allied generals, other than Patton.

[@namei8967]

Not worthwhile to name others

[@artlover1477]

Well, I am pretty sure it's documented that the German generals loathed Montgomery.

[@alanlight7740]

@@artlover1477 - I've heard that most of the American generals loathed Montgomery too.

[@brianblair4001]

​@@alanlight7740, market garden was a disaster

[@DMKFACTOR]

Actually the lack of comments speaks volumes!

[@thefreeman8791]

One way that you can see the ego of the Nazi generals is that they seem to always compare Patton to themselves. Patton was not inspired by them or Blitzkrieg. Patton’s main influence in his life were generals from the Confederacy. His own grandfather, who he was named after, was a colonel in the Confederate army. Patton grew up with his idols being Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson as well as General John Mosby being a personal family friend. Patton regularly compared his strategy to that of Stonewall Jackson. He used to tell Eisenhower that “you’ll be Lee and I’ll be your Jackson.” Lee and Jackson were known for their boldness and quick maneuvering. In Jackson’s Valley Campaign, he defeated three union armies totaling 56,000 troops with at most 17,000 troops. Patton saw his role in WW2 the same as Jackson’s role in the American Civil War. Jackson’s army was called “foot cavalry” because of how fast he moved them. Patton was the same way. Bold, fast, and daring.

[@jean-louislalonde6070]

Sounds like Napoléon's grande armée.

[@Tiah-mm8lp]

I did not know that about him, thank you for posting this.

[@thefreeman8791]

@@jean-louislalonde6070 Yes. Officers on both sides of the Civil War viewed Napoleon as their role model when it came to strategy. You can easily find photos of Sherman, McClellan, Johnson, Beauregard, etc striking the hand in the coat Napoleonic pose. In the 19th century, French was mandatory at West Point in order to be able to read the records of Napoleon’s generals and for a while one of the tutors there had been a general of Napoleon’s and was a tutor of Robert E. Lee.

[@thefreeman8791]

@@Tiah-mm8lp You are welcome. One thing that I have learned is that the cultural background of an officer will quite often explain their style of command. Patton, Stonewall Jackson, and Andrew Jackson all came from a Scots-Irish background. Their way of command was very aggressive and tough and they had no problem slapping around soldiers that they perceived were not doing their duty. Andrew Jackson literally almost beat on me of his soldiers to death before the Battle of New Orleans when he heard that soldier complaining about having to fight. One can imagine Patton doing the same thing. On the other hand, officers like Lee and Winfield Scott and George Washington came from a Cavalier cultural background and they tended to motivate troops with honey more than force. When Washington discovered that his troops were becoming depressed and losing the motivation to fight, he didn’t slap them around like an Andrew Jackson or George Patton would do. He decided to read a letter from the Continental Congress to his men and part way through the letter he stopped and took off his glasses and said: “You must excuse me as my eyes have grown weak and weary in service of my country.” That one act of his motivated his men and gave them the courage to keep fighting. The difference there is not time or education but the fact that the Scots-Irish have always been a rough and tumble and violent sort of people while the Cavaliers have always been the class of nobility and chivalry. Patton was a fantastic general and a great leader but I can’t see him motivating his men in the way that Washington did.

[@jean-louislalonde6070]

@@thefreeman8791 Thanks! I had no idea. Could you tell me who that general was?

[@trance9158]

I'm most interested in the opinions of Mannstein, Rommel, and Galland.

[@philiparonson8315]

Rommel died before his opinions would be known. Manstein was so self-serving that it is difficult to determine what he really thought. Heil Hitler one day, all the blame on Hitler the next. Just another lying Nazi trying to hang is own actions on others.

[@kodiakkeith]

Zhukov lost ten million soldiers fighting the Germans. Germany lost only half that many fighting both the western allies and the Soviets. The kind of losses that Zhukov created in his own armies doesn't reflect great strategy, only the willingness to throw lives away across a broad front. The UK lost less than 400K, the US 416K and those US/UK losses include both the Pacific war and Europe/Africa. The US/UK (and commonwealth) landed in Normandy in June, 44, and were pissing in the Elbe 11 months later. It took three years for the Soviets to get into Germany. One might also argue that the Soviets were fighting the same war as the Germans. They weren't fighting to liberate nations, they wanted the the same slave states that Germany fought for.

[@essaboselin5252]

Historically, that's always been Russia's strategy - overwhelm the enemy with cannon fodder. There's a quote from the Siege of Stalingrad where a German stated that Stalin had more bodies than the Germans had bullets.

[@derin111]

You play to your strengths. And, when your strength is overwhelming manpower…….. Your comparisons of the Western Allies (and indeed Germany) with the Soviet Union, simply on a tactical or even strategic level, do not take into consideration the differences in the level of relative economic/industrial sophistication between them. When the Soviet Union was attacked in 1941, it was little over a decade after Stalin had even implemented the first of his 5-year plans to modernise and industrial the country. The country still barely had any metalled roads. Soviet strength lay not in its economic/industrial sophistication but in its manpower. Despite what Hollywood depicts, Western Allied success wasn’t built upon the guile and skill of its Generalship or the ‘Brave, sharp-talking G.I’ with his M1 Garand. It was built upon overwhelming manufacturing capabilities which provided the means for not just crippling strategic bombing but also tactical air dominance over the entire theatre of operations, coupled with overwhelming ground firepower from artillery. The Western Allies didn’t need to rely on men dying in the same way to secure victory…..rather they could allow steel and explosives to do much more of the job.

[@jimhollenbeck4488]

@@essaboselin5252 How did that work out in the 1939 Winter War? The only reason Finland agreed to terms was because they were running out of ammunition, due largely to the isolationist in the US and the lack of support from other nations, an act that forced Finland to take support from Nazi Germany. I agree with you that Russia has always relied on abundance of bodies willingly sacrificed in order to wear down the enemy, While overwhelming the enemy with a seemingly endless supply of bodies may sound like a good plan, more often than not, it leads to unimaginative tactical planning at the highest level, IMO, that was the case for many Soviet generals, but then they also lived in the constant fear that if they were successful, Stalin would see them as a threat to him and they would end up in a ditch or a Gulag, and many did.

[@OneHitWonder383]

Disregard for human life has always been the socialist way. Remember the socialist mantra -- _the end justifies the means._ Stalin cared not one whit for the casualties, all he wanted was Germany subdued.

[@Alderak1]

You have no idea what you’re talking about. Zhukov was not the overall commander of Russian forces, he’s not responsible for all Russian losses. He was removed from his position of chief of staff 7 days into Barbarossa and he was allegedly forced to sign Directive no. 3 by Stalin and the Stavka. Zhukov states his suggestion to retreat from Kiev was what got him sacked at chief of staff (Kiev was subsequently encircled with 600000 Russians captured), which is the opposite of a general who wastes troops to reach an objective. The Russian casualty figures are largely due to mass encirclements early in the war, which resulted in millions of POWs taken, most of which died in captivity. Zhukov was not in active command of any Russian forces in the west until after most of those encirclements were completed. The Russians were actually outnumbered on the front in the first 6 months of the war when most of those encirclements took place. The Russians were not as effective as German troops but they actually fought at near parity with the Germans through most engagements in the war. Zhukov’s most famous feat was the defense of Moscow against Army group center in the winter of 41/42, a battle in which he pulled off a counter-attack to push the Germans away from Moscow while his forces were significantly outnumbered. Zhukov specifically sent out directives prohibiting frontal assaults, hasty counter-attacks, and in his command directives he specifically emphasized the importance of utilizing reconnaissance, artillery, flanking, and terrain to minimize casualties.

[@666toysoldier]

Harry Yeide is mentioned. He wrote "Fighting Patton---George S. Patton Through the Eyes of His enemies." A fuller exploration of this topic. This is one of six books about Patton that I have in my library. Others include "The Patton Papers --1885-1940" by Martin Blumenson, "The Pattons---A Personal History of an American Family" by Robert H. Patton (his grandson), and "War as I Knew It" by the general himself. I am currently re-reading "Patton--A Genius for War" by Carlo D'Este. Much better than the Ladislaw Farrago biography that was used for the movie.

[@dmac7128]

With respect to Patton, his legacy lies in the combined arms doctrine in use by the US Army and NATO today. This evolved from the armored warfare experience of the Americans in WWII. Tanks don't operate alone, they are a part of an approach that combines infantry, artillery, air support, and tanks. It also promotes the concepts of flexibility, responsiveness, and the delegation of tactical decisions to the leaders closest to the fighting. It emphasizes front line leadership. Field commanders are more free to take the initiative. Its interesting to see that the old Soviet/Russian ways of fighting in WWII are still used by the modern Russian army as evidenced in the Chechen, Syrian, and Ukraine wars.

[@boxsterman77]

He didn't invent these things. The first real demonstration of a combined arms approach came from none other than the German Blitzkrieg. As for the military principles of objective, offensive, mass, economy of force, maneuver, unity of command, security, surprise, and simplicity, these are as old as the hills and would be something Patton would have studied--not invented.

[@dmac7128]

@@boxsterman77 I never said he did. What I said is the experience of Patton shaped Army doctrine from then into the present.

[@VunderGuy]

It's interesting to see that even if the Russians really were playing strictly by old WWII tactics, that they're still effective because Russia won in Chechniya, Syria, and is winning in Ukraine. It's also interesting that despite decades of evidence and a couple of years of recent evidence to the contrary, people still think meatwave tactics are the norm rather than something that happened a few key points in the war against Germany and don't realize modern Russian doctrine follows more closely with superior firepower rather than mass assault. IE, the modern Russian army using various land based systems in conjunction with drones and other air assets aims to achieve victory by sending more munitions downrange more effectively than the enemy and then sending in infantry transported by AFVs and ideally supported by those AFVs to mop up and artillery spot what they can't mop up to rinse, wash, repeat.

[@mellokeith]

I’m confused… German generals’ opinions of allied generals… only one general was called out by name,Patton, no other American generals mentioned… no British generals called out by name, and Russian generals not even mentioned…

[@ToddSauve]

IIRC, some historian in Germany searched their military records and found that Patton was only mentioned twice in their entire contents prior to his taking over the breakout of the western end of Normandy in the summer of 1944. This idea that all the German generals knew of and feared George S. Patton is complete nonsense. They grew to know of him but only in the last 8 or 9 months of WW2. Prior to that he was a largely unknown footnote. 🤷‍♂

[@packr72]

Harry Yiedes book covers a lot of this.

[@AbnEngrDan]

Hmmm. Not true. They learned of Pattons's mindset in North Africa, then Sicily in 1943. No other commander believed in such a lightning war, which is why high command was reluctant to promote Patton. Heinz Guderians' grandson is a close friend of mine. They ALL knew who Patton was when he landed in Normandy. German intelligence was very good. I think you are looking at German High Command mention of Patton. Where you look is the mention of Patton documented by the German Generals who FACED Patton on the battlefield. A lot of mention of him in that realm. Army units have logs. Everything is recorded.

[@ToddSauve]

@@AbnEngrDan I picked up on Patton's more or less anonymity to the Germans from WW2 historian Dr. Marc Milner and an interview he gave. As he said, the only references he knew of were from Patton's time in North Africa and Sicily. These were not vital campaigns from the German perspective, so he was apparently not made note of to much degree. The movie "Patton" is not really known for its historical accuracy, so many people regard Patton as someone who was dreaded by the Nazis but he was of note really only from August 1944 onward. Not that Patton was a bad general, but he was always doing controversial things and disrespecting the lives of those under his command. Not my kind of guy but you can like him, of course.

[@DanH-u3f]

'I read your book you glorious SO..........'

[@CaffeinePanda]

It's okay to curse on the internet.

[@phillipdavidhaskett7513]

Guderian wrote the book on Panzer warfare. Patton read the book on Panzer warfare.

[@ThePerfectRed]

It is hard to over-estimate the allied superiority in ressources. In 1944, US infantry divisions had more tanks than German tank divisions.

[@dovetonsturdee7033]

Before getting too excited about this George C. Scott style opinion of Patton, people should seek out and read :- Harry Yeide. Fighting Patton: George S. Patton Jr. Through the Eyes of His Enemies. (Zenith Press.) To quote one critic's comment on the book , "From the movie Patton and from the biography on which it is partly based, Ladislas Farago’s Patton: Ordeal and Triumph, one is left with the impression that the German High Command spent most of its waking hours fretting about Patton and his whereabouts. According to Farago, after his campaign in Sicily, Patton was the Allied general the Germans regarded as “their most dangerous adversary in the field,” which led them to watch his comings and goings “like rubbernecked spectators following a tennis ball at Wimbledon. ” The problem is, notes Yeide, that “there does not appear to be an iota of fact behind this claim.” Or In ' Lorraine, Patton’s bloodiest campaign, he was up against some of Germany’s toughest officers. Of these, Yeide singles out General Hermann Balck, who performed the kind of flexible defense he had practiced in Russia on the Chir river. Thus on the Moselle and in the siege of Metz, the Germans forced Patton, short on gas and ammunition, into practicing the type of piecemeal attack that he deplored in others, and leading Balck to speak of “the poor and timid leadership of the Americans.” '

[@DavidRLentz-b7i]

I certainly would have put upon Sir General Bernard Montgomery, as a field commander, my every faith to give the Nazi High Command more than they could have imagined. And General Dwight D. Eisenhower was a brilliant administrator, fundamentally critical in deployment, resupply, etc. It was his acumen of organisational structure, logistics, etc., that positioned the war fighters in their best stance.

[@andrewhart6377]

Both Patton and the Germans of WW2, had however, modelled themselves on the Australian Shock Troop innovations used in 1918.

[@loserinasuit7880]

Patton was fanatical about tanks and petitioned for armored divisions constantly. Something every great power except for Japan took note of.

[@marsnz1002]

No, they didn't. The English term "shock troops" comes from the German "Stosstrupp".

[@Ensisferrae]

British general Hobart was the "mastermind" of Germany's Blitzkrieg tactics. Because Guderian was a huge fanboy of Hobarts works and had anything the man wrote translated into German.

[@FrankOdonnell-ej3hd]

the british have an experience with making war going back something like a thousand years so it's not surprising german generals had great respect not only for their acumen in strategy and tactics but also the tenacity and bravery of the the individual british soldier. As for patton he was certainly one of the more capable allied commanders but his unprofessionalism off the battlefield along with his reputation as a poser hurt him. And the fact that the soviets quickly became as good as the germans at tank warfare and then went on to defeat the greatest war machine in history is simply astonishing.⚛

[@maxpayne2574]

Never underestimate how stubborn the British can be

[@sirtigalotwolfe2962]

I know right... and being mostly English decent my wife would say I am the same only American Stubborn now... LOL!

[@MikeBronson515]

@@sirtigalotwolfe2962 God you’re an embarrassment. You’re just American dude, big surprise most white Americans are of English descent! Which is Germanic, which means you are just like the majority of the population of the country!

[@JohnMinehan-lx9ts]

Particularly the Scots and Welch . . . .

[@francischambless5919]

I will give the Brits some respect, but only some. The British Navy got the living piss blown out of them at Jutland, and only survived and won that battle due to their large numbers. Again, in WWII, if you look at every British engagement such as the Bismark or especially the Scharnhorst, the Brits needed FAR MORE ships to take out just the one German ship they were after. In just about every battle the Brits took 2nd task to what the Americans did, where the Americans always took the brunt of combat and achievement. Todays Brits are a bunch of socialist crybabies even the Nazi Socialists would abhor and likely about face if they saw what the future led to.

[@flankspeed]

​@@JohnMinehan-lx9ts Scots, not Scotch ✅️ Welsh, not Welch 😉

[@JohnRNewAccountNumber3]

"bizarre world view" Yeah, it's especially bizarre that people all over the world have shared it for millenia.

[@RB725GamingHD]

@@JohnRNewAccountNumber3 hahah

[@ihavenomindandimustthink]

My greatgrandpap was a tank driver and was in the literal spearhead of pattons tanks durring the rush to Bastonge. He drove a tank for 3 days without sleep while getting ambushed along the way. He lied about his age to join the army. He was no more than 17 at the battle of the bulge.

[@4urluvjones155]

Very, very interesting. Enjoyed. Thank you

[@docholiday1476]

From a general perspective it was by 1942 a war of attrition that Germany couldn’t hope to win unless it knocked England or Russia out of the war. Generals have some influence over battles but really it’s the strategic operations that matter. Germany saw France as its nemesis but it was really England. Had Germany carried the war to England in 1940 with an invasion England would have been knocked out more than likely, especially after abandoning so much of its heavy equipment.

[@Ratkill9000]

The story of the de Havilland Mostquito was quite intereating. Guderian had Percy Hobart's notes which is how they came up with the "Blitzkrieg".

[@ThomasHoag-k7d]

For all his blister and bravado Patton got the job done.

[@erictaylor5462]

I think had both men survived the war, Rommel and Patton would have become good friends.

[@dmitripetrenko4999]

Patton has been so hyped that it is quite telling that the German generals who actually fought him thought nothing special of him. Both Hermann Balck and the commander of the 15. Panzergrenadier division thought was too methodical, failed to exploit success and couldn't attack without overwhelming artillery and air support.

[@albertwashingtonjr2089]

Interesting video. Hope to catch it at home and add it to my list.

[@JeffreyWilliams-dr7qe]

How did the Germans view the duel command of Mark Clark and various British commanders in their Middle sea?

[@robertarcher4308]

Interesting that German military officials would comment about the resources of America, but they must have forgotten that France, Poland and Austria's armies weren't exactly the most formable opponents either.

[@xScooterAZx]

Rommel was deeply respected by both sides in the war. He treated his prisoners properly,fought honorably as much as he could.

[@64MDW]

They could think whatever they pleased. The fact is, the Germans got their asses kicked.

[@JARRETT7121]

No not at all the British and the French started World War II and Hitler kick their ass all the way to the English Channel

[@ndogg20]

@@JARRETT7121 The French started WW2 you say? Look forward to more of your delusional insights.

[@Bullet-Tooth-Tony-]

@@JARRETT7121 Then the British kicked the Germans out of Africa

[@kennettle]

@@JARRETT7121 German fantasies. Many Japanese have the same delusions. They were forced to attack to defend themselves.

[@Cloud-dq1mr]

@64MDW What an odd comment. The video subject was clear, but you just want to leave this weird ass chest-thumping comment over a war from 80 some years ago? "Yeah we beat their asses". Why did you even watch this clip?

[@Croploss]

Montgomery, LeClerk, DeGaulle, Bradley, Clark, etc?

[@NSG-zi1ut]

Montgomery, hyped up British soldier

[@roconnor01]

@@NSG-zi1ut Ditto Mark Clark

[@KironManuelCards]

The lend lease was the cause. Actually there was a backgame.

[@zam6877]

There's a good reason why many German generals recognized Patton Before ww2 he (and Eisenhower) supported a more tank-centered tactics

[@deanjacobs1766]

Patton was a great General who took risks. Calculated risks but risks none the less. MacArthur was a great General, he took risks. The Inchon landing behind North Korean lines was such a risk. And that happened when he was in his seventies. The New Guinea campaign was a risk , MacArthur’s theater of operation was ranked in terms of logistical importance behind that of the Panama Canal Zone. Essentially his campaign was done on a shoe string. And yet his forces Australian and American forced the Japanese back across the Owen Stanley mountain range to further losses at Buna and Gona the entire campaign to capture New Guinea cost less lives than the Battle of the Bulge. MacArthur was an old man but young enough to learn from his mistakes and failures.

[@vincentb2175]

Zhukov was a great general, possibly one of the best, he knew the limitations of his forces, of Stalins jealousy, and his lack of officers but was still successful in every theatre of war in which he took command. He is undoubtedly the best defensive general in the war. However, it’s hard to say for sure the overall best because Patton, Rommel, and Guderian were only as good as the men and material forces they commanded. All were excellent tacticians and understood how to use their forces to maximum effect. German generals had a huge advantage on the field when they had command of the land and air. Rommel did well when he had command of the air but did poorly against the allies when he didn’t have that advantage. I think overall Patton was America’s best general because he understood the power of the attack and always how to keep your enemy guessing where you will attack next. General Rommel was the best in that he was able able to command multiple units of different types and nationalities and with weaker forces and weaker equipment was able to use flanking tactics that defeated many English and American generals and use their own equipment against them. Even Churchill begrudgingly said Rommel was a better General than any the Allies commanded. However, Guderian was probably even better than Rommel. His only weakness was Hitler himself. Had Guderian been in charge of the Barbarossa campaign and had operational command of central army, I doubt the Russians could have won before the Fall mud and winter frost could stop him. Hitler stopped Guderian. He took away half his tanks and his fuel and gave it to a general who needlessly wasted it taking oil fields that were destroyed and steel factories that were put to the torch.

[@michaelmallal9101]

I think Zhukov lost the Winter War in Finland?

[@eugeneariz4395]

About the German generals. What they lacked and what led to their defeat was their inability reluctance and fear of standing up to Hitler as they all knew his battle plans and decisions were delusional and had zero experience in making on the field real time combat decisions. Also Hitler's no retreat policy cost 100's of thousands of his soldiers lives and freedom. If he had any tactical sense at all he would have preserved these forces to use at another time and if the German generals had any sense of duty to their own men they would have ignored Berlin and done the right thing. Their fear of Hitler was stronger than their love of country.

[@jakecollin5499]

The general problem with the idea that Hitler was a bad military commander and his generals were correct is that it’s just not accurate. All of his generals except one thought the initial blitzkrieg into Belgium, the Netherlands and then France was basically suicide. It was one of the most decisive and significant battles in history. Goerings misuse of the luftwaffe during the Battle of Britain was the first major hiccup in Hitlers strategy. Hitler listening to Goering instead of Donitz about where to prioritize his resources was also a mistake. However operation Barbarossa was fucking phenomenal and all of his generals thought he was completely nuts. Hitler didn’t start fucking up til he decided to stop pushing to Moscow. He ended up pissing around in the South and eventually Stalingrad. The poor logistics and lack of proper equipment was the fault of the generals as well. Also Goering was finally blowing his 45 point fourth quarter lead to the Allies at this time. His luftwaffe completely failed to deliver even a small fraction of what he guaranteed as minimum. He was consistently off by like 8 orders of magnitude 😂. Ultimately if it wasn’t for Hitler and his ideas the Germans would’ve behaved very similarly to the French. They would’ve kept WW1 tactics and stumbled around like incompetent buffoons. Because of Hitler we get to look at History and ask, wtf were the French thinking? Hitler became the fuck up everyone pretends he was during the last 1/3 of the war. The drugs and shit got to him for sure. The greatest villain for generations, but not a moron. Morons don’t almost take over the world.

[@jeffkardosjr.3825]

Hitler lacked oil. Wouldn't it have been a better idea if anything to focus more on the oil fields in the south?​@@jakecollin5499

[@xScooterAZx]

I enjoyed this video even though it didnt show the German field soldierss in a decent light. It's very well done. :}

[@deanfirnatine7814]

Lesser men will always criticize better men

[@hookalakah]

General Jodl referred to General Patton as a gangster. If the impression put the Germans back on their heels, the characterization works for me.

[@mskywalker0725]

Patton was basically Ulysses S. Grant 2.0

[@map3384]

A bit more clever though.

[@canadian__kid1592]

“They’re better then us in every aspect so we’re going to take the moral win and say we’re better fighters” is what I got there

[@RadioactiveAutism]

Oddly enough, the Mosquito was hated because it wasn’t going with the belief that bigger, slower and heavier (using metal) is better. It was hated until it started working better than other planes.

[@Sitzenleben]

The problem with wood frames was exposed when japanese zeros got hit with 50 cal. US pilots said they were easy to drop once hit. The mosquito was more than a zero however.

[@RadioactiveAutism]

@@Sitzenleben yeah, it was one of the fastest planes at the time

[@thehellfirewolf13]

Actually, the Blitzkrieg tactic wasn't invented by the Germans. It was Ser Percy Hobart of Britain. Dude saw how important tanks would be after WW1, but because he wasn't a 'gentleman' and the British Officer Corps was super clique-y at the time, especially the cavalry, he was sabotaged and 'retired'. Check him out, seriously. Everyone talks about Omaha beach during Normandy because of how bloody it was. The other beaches weren't anywhere near as bloody because of Hobart's 'Funnies.'

[@LordGreystoke-h5t]

The Germans fought with bolt action rifles designed in 1896 and were supplied by horse and wagon. They had no chance. Ever.

[@Play-time707]

I remember reading about Adolf Galland. He was watching as they brought out an Me-262, towed by horses. He said he knew at that moment, they lost the war. It's insane how they could pioneer certain technology, but were also decades behind in other areas

[@brandonvasser5902]

Well they were obliterating Russians who were lucky to have slingshots

[@Howie262]

Very flawed analysis you clearly don’t know the in depth doctrinal reasons for decisions to use certain things over the next. Every nation in ww2 fought with bolt action rifles more or less and the advantage of having an assault rifle or self loading rifle in primary role were not realized before the offset of ww2. none however besides the Germans had the un-fair advantage of arguably the best light MG series ever made including to this day the mg42 series has not been eclipsed. You failed to consider the rest of the squads/platoons fire power in that comment which is odd considering the proliferation and huge innovations of weapons like MG’s, MP’s and anti tank weaponry armed at the individual soldier level when compared to their contemporaries…. On the topic of horse drawn logistics it’s more of an issue of prioritizing precious fuel use in sectors that can’t do without. Horses eat grass which is re-newable/not a vital resource. Trains(the back bone of German logistics) can use coal which once again is plentiful and doesn’t hinder fuel consumption elsewhere. I think you need to do more research on ww2 because Germany lost due to facing multiple world empires all at once, not “they fought with bolt action rifles”. Which a comment like that was not only ignorant but designed to passively insinuate that the Germans lacked forethought or technology achievement. Cheers!

[@Quakeboy02]

If they had no chance, they never should have started the war. The same is true of Japan, but for different reasons.

[@Play-time707]

@Quakeboy02 the Germans made a horrible decision to open up a second front before they finished off the British. The Japanese knew they couldn't beat the United States, Yamamoto was against war with the US. He was educated in the US and understood Americans. He believed he could be victorious for 6 - 12 months buy had zero expectation of success beyond that. Their entire battle plan consisted of needing to destroy the US Pacific Fleet. They felt if they could, then the US would gave to sue for peace. Seems insane to even try it

[@HateBear-real]

Small Mustache Man was obviously right about the British gov. Claiming otherwise makes you look ignorant. J involvement in British politics was a key controversy in the 1700s when they were allowed citizenship and then got into Parliament, OBVIOUSLY. You're literally afraid to talk about it because they have so much power lol.

[@rlkinnard]

The most successful battle was Bagration commanded by Rokossovski. Why did he not get a mention.

[@Hal-k8p]

it was only a 10 minute video.

[@chriscampbell9191]

Yeah.... the Soviet general who was imprisoned before the war, and then let out of prison because they needed his expertise... There's a cool pic of him, Zhukov and Monty walking through Berlin a couple weeks after the fall of the city.

[@dennisswaim8210]

Whatever the logistics and supply issues that affected the allies were the situation was always much worse for the Germans. Pat and understood this. When given a rest, the Germans were able to refit and reorganize to make a better defense. Patient was aware of this as well for the Germans had done it multiple times therefore continuing to apply pressure against the Germans was the best course of action. Patton was aware of this as well more than any other allied commander. My point about Grant, wasn't and Logistics comparison but a Strategic and tactical philosophy that prevented the confederates from regaining the initiative. The discussion of logistics as the American Civil War as opposed to World War 2 is an interesting one but not what I was talking about. The comparison of Union forces in the American Civil War versus the confederates as far as logistics and supply is similar to what the Germans were facing versus the allies in World War 2. That is, the opponent had much stronger capability of keeping their armies in the field. Sherman's march to the sea was as much a punishment of the South's economy as it was to resupply his army, it was more to do with the destruction of a Southern economy that was the aim.

[@billballbuster7186]

How was Patton "the American Guderian" when he never actually fought a major tank battle or commanded a theater? Only for a few weeks in Tunisia was he a field commander of II Corps, in NW Europe he fought under Bradley. Cautious Montgomery actually defeated Rommel in Libya, Tunisia and Normandy, Rommel did not defeat him once! The "Lions led by donkeys" was given to the British in WW1. credited to General Ludendorff. But the Germans did think the British were their most difficult opponent in WW1 and WW2. German opinion of the Russians changed when the Red Army started to win, it just wouldn't do to be defeated by the racially inferior lol

[@phatphil7836]

Montgomery had every conceivable advantage in Africa and still struggled at times to defeat the Germans.

[@billballbuster7186]

@@phatphil7836 At 2nd El Alamein Monty outnumbered Rommel 3-2, hardly overwhelming when you consider Monty was attacking. But Rommel lost 70% of his army compared to 7% for Monty. Some biased writers do not mention the scale of Rommel's defeat, he was only saved by logistics limiting the British advance. At Kasserine Pass, Fredendall outnumbered Rommel 3-2 but was heavily defeated loosing 25% of his force. Rommel who was attacking lost only 6% of his force. Though on a much smaller scale it was the exact opposite of El Alamein. Patton's huge 3rd Army outnumbered the Germans at least 4-1 in the Lorraine-Metz Campaign. But Patton lost 110,000 men, the Germans lost just 27,000. The Germans retired in good order to join the Battle of the Bulge forces. Best not to mention the utter disaster of the Hurtgen Forest.

[@phatphil7836]

@@billballbuster7186 The British & Americans never had to deal with the logistics issues the Germans dealt with in Africa or in Europe late during the war. For the Americans to lose in the Hürtgenwald and for the British to lose during Market Garden doesn't say much for their commanders. Model did WAY more with less than Eisenhower, Montgomery, or Patton ever did.

[@billballbuster7186]

@@phatphil7836 If you read about North Africa the logistics issue worked both ways. After El Alamein the Germans destroyed all the ports in Libya as they retreated. So 8th Army was supplied by a single road going back to Port Said in Egypt. Until the ports of Tobruk, Benghazi and El Agheila were later repaired. In NW Europe the British had a very good supply system, mostly by Railroad. It was the Americans Bradley and Patton that constantly complained about a lack of fuel and supplies to excuse their failures. The Germans got their supplies by robbing and stealing from the whole of Europe. It was only after the Allied advances that fuel and supplies began to run out. Typified in the Battle of the Bulge, were the Germans had to forrage for fuel.

[@phatphil7836]

@@billballbuster7186 The British starved millions of Indians to death by stealing resources. The Germans weren't the only empire stealing or committing a Holocaust.

[@ahill209]

I've spoken to WWII Invasion of Sicily vets who despised Patton. Patton outran his supply lines and put soldiers in danger due to lack of ammo, fuel, food, and sleep. The campaign was successful but would have been more efficient had he paused and resupplied. Similar story after D-Day when Montgomery stopped to allow the supply lines to catch up while Patton wanted to keep driving on. At least in that case, Patton was overruled.

[@kennethabbott3856]

I'm sure they thought of American generals the same way most modern people thing of ancient Egyptian pyramid builders: "They couldn't possibly be smart enough to do that!"

[@EmisoraRadioPatio]

I couldn’t help notice the absence of any German testimonials about Soviet generals. My impression is that they were viewed generally poorly and relied on brute numbers of Soviet forces.

[@noteanotell937]

according to the Chieftain in a US tankfest chat the German high command hadnt really heard of Patton.

[@ToddSauve]

Exactly. It is pathetic that the average armchair historian has done virtually no homework on Patton other than to _assume_ he was the best. He was without question a very good general, especially in open field running when the Germans were in disarray and his tanks could gobble up territory almost at will. But as I mentioned in another comment here, no one in the German high command even knew who Patton was until August of 1944 when he showed up leading 3rd US army group as they emerged from Normandy. He was not some well known and much fear Allied general. He was only mentioned twice in all of the German military archives prior to that time, and was apparently only noted as one of the American generals in the north Africa campaign and then his role on Sicily. And that was it. Period.

[@gebirg1]

@@ToddSauve Patton also never faced really first-class German troops. He was usually advancing against second-line or garrison troops. In Normandy he was able to break through the German lines because the vast majority of the German army were facing the British and Canadians around Caen. Then in the advance across France the best German troops were in the north facing Hodges and Montgomery while Patton was fighting against what were basically the dregs of the Wermacht.

[@Bullet-Tooth-Tony-]

@@gebirg1 That's correct. 5 Waffen SS Panzer divisions ( 1st SS, 10th SS, 9th SS, 12th SS, 2nd SS) plus 3 German Army Panzer divisions ( 21st Panzer, Panzer Lehr, 2nd Panzer) including 3 Tiger Heavy tank battalions ( 101st SS, 102nd SS, 503rd Heavy Panzer Battalion) and the 654th Heavy Tank-hunter Battalion with Jagdpanthers. ALL of this was stationed at Caen facing the British, Canadians and Poles. The Germans had in total 675 tanks to throw at them. And that's not including the 7 German infantry divisions, two Nebel Werfer brigades and two companys of StuG III assault guns also in support of those German armoured divisions. As one can see, a lot of these units above are crack formations, among the best equipped units in the Heer.

[@deanfirnatine7814]

He is an idiot

[@irvingramirez2335]

5:04 that statement aged like wine

[@dalefincher9810]

WW 1 and 2 was the same story as the American Civil War. Overwhelming quantity against quality. As usual, quantity overwhelmed quality.

[@MB-xe8bb]

Which is why the West needs to supply Ukraine.

[@tavish4699]

@@MB-xe8bbwe don’t Ukraine brought this onto itself

[@davidnash8208]

The most effective but almost unknown general was General Alan Brooke, later Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, He fought for the Mediterranean campaign instead of an early assault on Western Europe, which would have been a disaster, he curbed Churchills, more impractical ideas and fired incompetent generals. MacArthur considered him the outstanding Allied general even though he did not directly control troops. he was the only superior general that Montgomery both feared and respected, Other respected allied generals include Bradley and Horrocks,

[@renatocamurca2713]

Zukhov, Konev and Rokossovsky ? Nothing to comment about them ? None of them were Allied supreme commanders ?

[@Hal-k8p]

it was only a 10 minute video.

[@noco7243]

No. They fought in the "great patriotic war". Completely different.

[@Hal-k8p]

@@noco7243 Your logic is faulty. Since it was WORLD war 2, that means the whole world was involved. Hence, the war was the same war for everyone. Just because particular nations gave it their own particular names is irrelevant. It was not a completely different war. The Russian war was just one specific operational area in the same WORLD war as everyone else was in.

[@stooge389]

3:00 "This led to a perception that allied victories were due more to materiel superiority than individual skill." Well... yeah. It never hurts to outnumber your enemy. To have more guns, more planes, more bombs, , more stuff means more stuff to fight with. And you know what? Germany wouldn't have been in such a position of lack if they hadn't made the stupid-ass choice to invade the USSR. The main reasons besides the Aryan-Superiority complex were to grab land to live on, and to take the resources from the Soviets that Germany needed in order to be self-sufficient, a concept known as autarchy. Mainly this meant oil. They needed lots of coal, too, but they had that on the European continent they'd conquered. They had plenty of iron ore being bought from Sweden, but they didn't invade Sweden to seize the iron deposits from the Swedes. Wanting to be self-sufficient almost makes sense. Except that the soviets were ALREADY SELLING THEM ALL THE OIL THEY NEEDED. By invading their oil-supplier, they simultaneously showed anyone who might have allied with them that they couldn't be trusted to honor their word (the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact) AND cut off their biggest source of oil- theoretically only until they could get to the Caucuses oil fields and simply extract the oil themselves, but in the meantime, they had an INSANE oil deficit of something like 5 million tons a year. And any idiot should've been able to predict that Stalin would burn the oil fields (which delayed the possibility of extracting oil for the Germans by 6 months, by which point the sixth army was already encircled and the initiative was forever lost on the Eastern Front to the Nazis) as well as destroying the oil refineries- though Stalin did one better by picking the oil refineries up and putting them somewhere else. Meanwhile, as they're in the midst of the biggest war of all time, a titanic life-and-death struggle against the allies, they're clogging their logistic networks, particularly rail lines, with victims to-be of the Holocaust death and concentration camps, costing them vital transportation lines (and fuel) that could've helped done things like take the milk and bread that was spoiling in France to their starving soldiers on the Eastern Front, and ship weaponry and ammo that was desperately needed by their troops. I'd say thank God they fouled up their own logistics, because it was a HUGE reason they lost the war, but what they were doing instead was somehow even more horrific than fighting their brutal war against the USSR. I mean obviously we're all glad they lost, because we might literally all be speaking German right now if they hadn't (those of us whose ancestors weren't exterminated in gas chambers) but exchanging victory on the Eastern front where there was already massive amounts of ethnic cleansing and extermination, for the literal holocaust is not exactly the way I would have chosen to win. It all just goes to show you how horrific the Third Reich was, and how good a thing for humanity it is that they were ultimately defeated. All this is not even to mention that they WERE in the process of developing nuclear weapons, but abandoned it because the resources needed to create it were too vast and they preferred to focus on the war and the holocaust. But it's something to consider- if such antithetical countries as the United States and the USSR hadn't worked together and helped each other, if they hadn't come together to defeat the Nazis and the Japanese, the war might have gone on a few years longer... and I'd say "who knows what Nazi Germany would've done with nuclear weapons" but... we all know EXACTLY what they would've done with them. WITHOUT Nuclear weapons Hitler still managed to exterminate 20 million people in the holocaust, most of it in the span of only about 3.5 years, from mid 1941 to March 1945. They did star the Holocaust in 1939, but the scale of it was much smaller before the war with the soviets began. Once that happened, they knew there was a possibility of defeat, so they adopted o a mindset of "let's kill as many non-Aryans as we can while we can!" and began what they called the Final Solution. But, had they had time enough to develop nukes- do you REALLY think he wouldn't have nuked London, nuked Moscow and Leningrad and Stalingrad? That when the time came he wouldn't have nuked New York and Los Angeles and D.C.? It makes one shudder to consider that while WW2 was the most horrific man-made cataclysm in history, it could have been SO much worse.

[@gerryGuerra-j5s]

Germany was fighting basically the whole world and their industries......Can you imagine if America had as many countries against it with all of their resources against them....The world would be totally different when the shoe is on the other guys feet....

[@jefferythompson3235]

I think you are more right than you even know lol Germany was definitely fighting against the corporations of the world

[@lanceash]

Thank you for pronouncing the German names more-or-less correctly.

[@lonewonderer7657]

I dont think i can agree with the soviet views as i think it comes down to sheer numbers than skill, i dont dismiss it entirely and they did have some good equipment such as tge T34 but their stratagy always seems to be more or less the same as for at this point germany had opened up far too many fronts. Soviet doctrain has always come down to quantity vs quality, look at reports from the germans from WW1 and they mention this too, this repeats in russias winter war as well with finland and again in WW2, and a further time in the ukraine war

[@jameshepburn4631]

A Russian military doctrine going way back is ‘Quantity is a quality of its own’.

[@nicholasbrowning4558]

I think the Soviet strategy was too hold off the Germans just long enough until winter set in then a war of attrition. After two Russian winters Stalin released his considerable reserves who were well equipped for winter warfare. They first attacked the weakest point which were mostly Romanians. Once they broke thru that line it was over. There was once an example of frozen German equipment and the Russians had civilians beat them to death with shovels and picks Hitler was insane to not do an orderly withdrawal but then he was insane to attack them in the first place with no winter equipment. Why he thought he could conquer thousands of miles before winter is mystifying. Only a three or four month window

[@lonewonderer7657]

@@nicholasbrowning4558 something i keep forgetting is Russia's sheer size and how far Moscow is from the border, they can more or less sacrifice land and draw their enemy in deeper while forcing their enemy to stretch their supply lines and with the onset of Russian weather makes it a deadly combo

[@iatsd]

@lonewonderer7657 I think you need to read a bit more widely. :) The Russians were very much more than just "Wait for winter and then attrit" For example, they came up with the stormtrooper concept in 1915/1916 to break trench stalemates that they used to good effect on the Eastern Front - something the Germans adopted and exported to the Western Front to *great* effect. Their artillery - especially the field artillery - was also regarded as far more skilled than the German and Austraian artillery up until 1917. An example of that would be their ability to put down fire missions that followed terrain features or where they could vary of angle the target beaten zone angles at will, something the Germans (or British) couldn't do until 1917, something that American artillery has *never* managed to learn how to do. Similarly, in WW2 they were quicker off the mark with proper combined arms operations than everyone - although a good argument could be made that they were not very *good* at it until late 1943.

[@tavish4699]

At the time of 1941 the Germans were quite safe in the west The only active front was Africa They needed to attack the Soviets now or it would be too late The Soviet army had doubled in one year The Soviets also planned to attack Germany which is proven and no surprise as the both of them hated eachother

[@jerrygoller4269]

Considering that Germany was about the size of Montana, it is amazing they held on as long as they did. It even more amazing they got into a war wit the U.S. to start with.

[@axel8406]

The old soviet style meat grinder tactic of stalingrad. One can knly imagine how the war would have went if hitler didnt want to capture the stalins namesake and just pushed on to the oil his military desperately needed.

[@MichaelMcDonough-vw7if]

Even if the Germans had gotten to the oilfields they had no endgame beyond denying the oil to the Soviets.

[@axel8406]

@MichaelMcDonough-vw7if true but they possibly would have been encircled and lost the entire army group. Their mechanized units would have also gotten the oil they desperately needed as well.

[@MichaelMcDonough-vw7if]

@@axel8406 By no endgame I mean they had no means of getting the oil back to Germany.

[@axel8406]

@MichaelMcDonough-vw7if we can only speculate but I would like to think that you are correct. The nazis would have been blocked in by the allies and the oil would have been useless to hitler.

[@MichaelMcDonough-vw7if]

@@axel8406 I just don't think the Germans were capable of moving the oil regardless of the military situation. The Germans would have had to capture the rail lines - and rail stock - to move the oil westward. Rail lines and stock are relatively easy to destroy. Soviet rail car wheel gauges were incompatible with the German rail lines so everything would have to be transferred at the border. I doubt any of this was ever planned out.

[@VMX1.]

Moral courage is the most valuable, but usually the most absent character in men. Patton

[@chuckmiller8951]

Model, Rommel and mannstein

[@curtisrodriguez938]

Translate to English? Come on guys. Somebody has to be paying attention. These are surnames of German commanders. There is no need to translate. Also very interesting video. I enjoyed it quite a bit.

[@antoinesanfacon7934]

"We fought the wrong ennemy"-Also Patton

[@nareshzutshi9812]

As Churchill said, the Russians tore out the guts of German military.

[@chrisvanderwielen1530]

It's hard to say. Without Hitler's ultimatums, that completely stalled the advance, split their forces, and focused, stubborn attacks on completely irrelevant targets, who knows how the Eastern Front would have turned out.

[@paratrooper508]

germans: the americans only won because of superior industry also germans: (has overwhelming materiel superiority over poland etc yet they never seem to criticize themselves in that way)

[@ricky-6657believe]

I imagine what they thought mostly after the bumbling, stumpling Americans got involved was that they were getting their butts kicked.

[@rickdavis4456]

Sir Percy Hobart (of England) was the father of the Blitzkrieg. English military looked down on Hobart and therefore disregarded his plans until they needed him to get back on French land.

[@DeMan59]

Does it really matter what German generals thought? They lost.

[@bobbrown674]

After, for the USA concentrating on Patton, this then talks about armies in general & hardly mentions actual generals. What is the subject?

[@kennettle]

When America entered the war Churchill said "we've won" He knew the economic power of the US. The US military was small and inexperienced and did not do well for a year. The military became larger and more experienced and the equipment got better. They created a tidal wave which was unstoppable because of their modern and large economy. The young soldiers replaced the desktop fighters and their bravery won the war.

[@jonmce1]

From what i have read Patton during the war did not actually get much attention in official reporting. Most of these desriptions came post war when said generals were under Allied control lead by the US.

[@adammcgregor-d3y]

Inaccurate.

[@byronthibaudeau8600]

Patton was an amazing tactical commander because as destiny had it(he believed in military traditon and reincarnation) he was in the right comand in the right army at the precise moment in history he was needed. Bottom line was that he was a superb calvary commander. Calvary as a force was a completely different style of warfare than the way infantry units were lead. Calvary was allmost the the antithesis of traditional methods unit comand and function. for thousands of years the horse dashed across the battlefield performing crucial applications of force at will on the field of battle. Dashing forth at an excellent pace relative to the day it could break whole units and change the course of battle in a moments time. Oddly enough a tank caught dead stopped out the open became easier targets and risked being hit same as a horse would years before and as fate had it Calvary was taught to keep moving onward once engaged. you can't ride into a ditch or foxhole to take cover and now neither could armored vehicles halting a tank colum time and time again throughout the war proved to stop would mean death. So like the light brigade that refused to turn back and many other units like them throughout history you now took a hard riding fearless horseman who believed in his own self-righteous traditioned sense of duty and gave him tactical control over a whole army on a territory the size of Texas with little supervision. But one thing any calvary man knew was when you get the enemy on the backfoot you constantly charge forward never letting the enemy catch a break. Patton divisions were organized for swift breakthroughs they just ran out of momentum after the loss of fuel Ww1 killed the horse but also created the tank. Patton saw at once that the tank was to be calvary of the future. He trained and molded the armored divisions for near 15 years writing doctrines testing theorys. When he landed in Africa scicily and later commanded in France he was always on the offensive thinking like a calvary officer Very few generals around the World saw tanks as independent mobile flexible and cohesive units. Out of the handful ready to gamble operations on armored central attacks and spearheads it's possible Patton was the only general (colonel pre war) outside of national Germany who thought that way. The rest of the world envisioned the tank as am infantry support vehicle . A slow moving support gun such as small artillery pieces from generations before. Patton did loose troops yes same as a Calvary charge would take losses in past times. But all attacks had losses. Patton had quick bloody battles where he'd build up then charge out with brilliant combined arms tactics. It was magnificent when you consider he was a man of devout history and. Military tradition. And this war was fought in a slightly napoleonic fashion in a way. Faster time table than non mechanized forces but at its core you had the main ItBody of the army once again made up primarily of the walking infantry man, one again like a century before artillery was decisive and constant movement could alter the course of battle same as before. But now the armies of the world were given back the fast and powerful striking force the tank. Patton was adept at advancement in depth. A regiment of horse expects to gain ground or die in the effort so their support traditionally was prepared to advance as well not only moving front lines but supply and communication as well Never settling down in one spot expecting to move supply's forward quickly it was already intended for say next week's deliveries to make it the next hundred miles or whatever forward. His mentality and aggressiveness are what defined him and his obsession to be ready to move out at a moments notice allowed 3 whole divisions to relieve bastogne faster than anyone else in Europe at the time thought possible. Nobody came close to his skill knowledge experience and sheer luck. The Germans only invaded France once the blitzkrieg was conceived and would have failed If the French weren't so melancholic from ww1. Patton just in a moments notice ordered 3 divisions at their as is condition off the line and march 100 miles north in snow and freezing temperatures. Nobody knew the exact ammount of German forces or their armor or their logistics and their fighting capabilities. Patton grabbed his boys and led a charge to attract the breakthrough. That was the task driven into him at the Virginia military institute and west point. The gallant charge to save the lines. And that's what he did. Montgomery fortified his position bradley fortified his rear lines of defense. Perhaps sensible but it was what they were taught controlling vast armies of now unorganized defense. Patton seized the tactical initiative and acted on it. He was prepared to die outside bastogne if it bought the army time to organize. That's the difference between him and all the other generals of the time. L'audace, l'audace, toujours l'audace audacity audacity always audacity He had the fewest losses of any army in the war when you take into account the sheer amount of territory he captured in little time while engaging more forces thanny american army in history The slow passive progress of other commanders in Europe became meat grinders moving forward just slow enough the Germans could keep refortifying they're positions. Patton smashed all opposition and chased them down so they couldn't mount proper defenses. He would have driven straight into the the southern regions of Germany possibly even to Vienna to cut off Italy but Montgomery threw a fit and commandeered the fuel and supplies for market garden. Patton fought on the front lines in ww1 with tanks and was wounded he saw first hand what a haulted army faced from industrilized warfare, acurate artiller fire, trenches bunkers tank traps you name it. The Germans fortified every yard of dirt in the northern theaters because they never kept constant pressure on the enemy

[@georgegarcia1445]

They still lost.

[@Idahoguy10157]

Twice

[@tavish4699]

Not the point is it

[@fernywings8922]

Smiling Albert was underrated

[@anthonyferris8912]

Er….Rommel lost and then topped himself. I’d prefer to be evaluated by a survivor.

[@snapjitzy]

Ok donald.

[@billyshane3804]

What an ignorant statement!!! Real WW2 military history genius!! Tell us more 'facts' so that we can mock & lampoon you.

[@Blair338RUM]

😂😂😂

[@stanleymerritt2893]

He wasn't given a choice.

[@frosty3693]

As titled , What did the Germans think of allied generals seems to have gone way off topic.

[@chris4321das]

"American Guderian" 😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣 Patton was small potatoes in WW2. Paul Fussell called Patton “a master of chickensh1t”-because “This eulogizing of Patton provides one of the best examples of American military culture’s complete detachment from the scale of WWII and its inability to analyze or learn from it.” Russia destroyed Germany. The US had a relatively small part to play. Read Pentagon historian Glantz's *When Titans Clashed: How the Red Army Stopped Hitler*

[@gern7535]

Does mommy know you're playing on her computer?

[@markskaggs5493]

" we slaughtered the wrong Pig". Churchill referring to Hitlers death and the USSR Alliance. I agree

[@jocopowell]

"Amateurs talk tactics, professionals study logistics" ~ General Omar Bradley. Omaha beach, June 9th, 1944

[@OrcHunter-yb4ie]

Too bad FDR didn't take Patton's greatest advice...take Moscow.

[@garymorris7472]

Hitler tried that with a superior army. That would not have gone well.

[@Mortablunt]

Patton was basically a Nazi who happened to be an American nationalist. It’s a good thing the politicians never listened to him.

[@MB-xe8bb]

Not enough resources.

[@Mortablunt]

It's a good thing NOBODY WITH SENSE listened to Patton's politics. Millions of Americans, British, German, Belgian, French and Chinese would have died for a futile and impossible mission. A quick history lesson reveals Russia is virtually immune to direct occupation, and even if occupied, it's too much effort and expense, with too much inertial and land to make the occupation and hoped changes stick. Not even Ghenghis Khan could subjugate the Russians successfully and had to leave their lifestyle and culture intact in favor of a tributary system.

[@alexstoyanov6108]

It would be interesting to watch, how Patton would manage without 8 to 1 air superiority and overwhelming artillery advantage.)

[@reddeserted13]

Eisenhower and Bradley ranked Hodges above Patton.

[@stevebunovsky7739]

The Soviets took on 80% of the German army and won. The combined Anglo-American forces beat the remaining 20%. The English squadron with the highest kill rate in the Battle of Britain was actually Polish…it was the Slavs who proved themselves superior despite all the propaganda hurled at them…and basically won the war for the Allies.

[@digitalnomad9985]

The US declared war on December 11, 1941. The turning point of Germany's eastern front, prior to which Germany was totally on the offensive was the Battle of Stalingrad (23 August 1942 - 2 February 1943). By the time the Battle of Stalingrad had even begun, the US and UK were already shipping aid in bulk to the Soviet Union, mostly food a first, but constantly trucks and fuel, shipped in by Anglo-American convoys fighting through the German attempt at blockade. The defenders of Stalingrad almost starved as it was, and would certainly have starved without that aid. By the time the USSR had turned to the offensive, The US had been supplying, and continued to supply, Sherman tanks in vast numbers to all the allies including the Soviet Union. The UK also supplied the USSR with some tanks. The US and the UK also supplied the Soviets with combat and logistics aircraft. 90% of the trucks supporting the Soviet offensive logistical effort were Studebaker trucks shipped in from US factories, and the bulk of the fuel was from the US as well. Without that aid the Soviet offensive would not have been possible logistically or materially. Shortly after the US declaration of war, the US sent ground forces to aid the British effort to push the Axis powers out of Northern Africa. In November of 1942, the US opened an African front of its own in Operation Torch. The Anglo-American offensive pushed the Axis out of Africa, and deprived them of their main source of oil. This began well before the end of the Stalingrad battle and the start of the Soviet offensive, and paved the way for the subsequent Anglo-American invasions of Sicily and Italy, which took Italy out of the war. This also caused Hitler to divert forces from his eastern to his southern front during the pivotal period. Your 80/20 split counts only the East front/West front and ignores the divisions the British and US troops faced in Italy. Moreover, any analysis of the USSRs contribution to the allied war effort is incomplete without factoring in their prior contribution to the Axis war effort. The first Soviet intervention in events was its joint operation with the Reich in the conquest of Poland, accompanied by the non-aggression pact between the USSR and Nazi Germany. Not only that, but the USSR was supporting the Reich with its propaganda and vast amounts of material aid shipped across Poland by rail. While the US was already becoming the Arsenal of Democracy by sending material aid to the UK prior to the declaration of war, the USSR was simultaneously becoming the Arsenal of Despotism by sending material aid to Hitler. The courage of the Soviet peoples in the latter part of the war was commendable, but a complete analysis of the net Soviet contribution to the war must take into account that the problem the USSR helped solve was largely a problem they helped create. The USSR didn't join the Allies until they had to do so to survive, and they wouldn't have survived without Allied help.

[@michaelmallal9101]

Maybe Beria was behind Soviet victory?

[@ThatGuyWayOverThere]

@@stevebunovsky7739 The Sovjets would have been destroyed without support from britain and the US. They cut off Germany from essential resources and bombed its factories. And not all Sovjets were slavs.

[@jitendivgi2761]

The British VIII and XIV armies had mainly Indian troops from regiments such as Marathas, Gurkhas, Sikhs. We know what had happened in Dunkirk and Singapore. Biggest retreat or surrenders in military history. It took the Americans and Indian troops to stiffen the back of the British Army.