belisarius

what mattered was marshall was at the pentagon and white house during the crucial time. oh i don't doubt macarthur would have made as good or even better. but marshall made the crucial decisions. the only devaition was macarthur's 'philippines first' which forced the creation of an entire navy fleet just for him.

Both Marshall and Eisenhower never experienced combat first-hand. And both made their greatest contributions to mankind outside the military arena, Eisenhower as a two-term President of the United States, and Marshall as Secretary of State and author of the Marshall Plan to rebuild Western Europe, for which he received the Nobel Peace Prize.

marshall's strategies as army chief of staff basically won the war for the US.

i still think george marshall was a cut above all the US field commanders during the second world war.

^

yeah, a caesar whose mother watched over his west point barracks window from a house rented for the purpose.

"panzer leader" by heinz guderian is hard to beat in that respect. rommel's exploits as a pre-africa corp tank leader gives a great vantage point from the top of the tank turret.

going back to the german shock troops, remember that european small unit tactics were centered around the machine gun, whereas american tactics then was slowly veering towards close quarter combat since they developed squad-level firepower (semi-auto garands and BARs). they relied on their mortar platoons to rain 81mm shells on the enemy farther than 500 meters.

the germans, on the other hand, developed the machine gun-centered small unit action to its peak. in the case of a german platoon or company, it's the machine gunner who has to get into position before the real fight begins. and those german water-cooled machine guns were real lulus. 1,200 rpm. americans reported their troops were getting whacked from a distance of one mile from the enemy. lucky for the americans, they had their mortars.

with regard to WW2 naval battles, read "incredible victory" by walter lord. it's the only good book on the battle of midway. for the night actions off guadalcanal, read "japanese destroyer captain" by tameichi hara - terrific book on the development and actual use of close-in torpedo tactics.

but if you want a nice analysis of the mother battle of the war which is leyte gulf, you just have to google "turkey trots to water." great analysis of the battle. to really understand leyte gulf, you'll first have to fully understand naval ordnance. first, you'll have to know the basic difference between an escort / auxilliary carrier and a fleet attack carrier. you also have to understand the difference between a pre-versailles treaty battleship and a post-treaty one (alternately called a fast battleship). last, you should understand the chain of american command during the battle and the basic difference between the third fleet under halsey and the seventh fleet which was created to support macarthur's island hopping campaign.

gurkhas? not so interested in them. their style of warfare is too conventional (although some wrote of nice exploits by guys armed with kuhkris during the falklands war).

i'm researching more about the dreaded german shock troops. the guys who, at normandy, were described by an american general to be "the best troops i've ever seen and if they had the same logistics we had, they'd walk over us all the way to new york."

while it's not up to me to fill in the gaps in your knowledge i'll give it a try.

the contribution of sf in the first conflict you mentioned is well documented. i suggest you get off your arse and find any one of several books written about the persian gulf war by actual sf veterans.

sorry, yopu meant "significant involvement", not crucial contribution. what won the gulf war was immediate negation of iraqi air power, continuous bombing of republican guard positions, eventual destruction of the latter through a full-scale land assault.

as for the afghanistan, we'll start with the russian campaign and how spetsnaz troops were first in to kabul and were responsible for the capture of the presidential palace and the execution of afghan president hafizullah amin. the current afghan campaign has seen several well documented reports and photographs of american, canadian, australian, new zealand and british sf troops in action both militarily and in "hearts and minds" operations.

very good. so the spec warriors captured the palace. but i'm pretty sure the occupation (which was the only real psitive achievement the soviets made) was done through a full-scale conventional campaign.

as for ww2, you might want to read up on otto skorzeny and operation oak. the battle of crete and the role of the fallschirmjaeger; david stirling and the sas; the lrdg; the oss; and i'll stop at the telemark sabotage where norwegian commandos, trained by the british soe, disrupted the nazi nuclear program.

read nearly every book available about skorzeny. gran sasso, battle of the bulge, the remagen bridge --all minor, of no significance to the outcome of the war, or even a major battle.

the korean war: check out michael e.haas' book "in the devil's shadow:u.n. special operations during the korean war"

read that. now read also "soldier" about how special operations during the korean war was genrally lousy and merely brought about the deaths of several expensively trained american soldiers.

the vietnam war. if you're still not aware of the role of sf troops in this conflict, from the initial french involvement to the final american pull out then you're a bigger dumb arse then i originally thought.

the green beret, the five fingers, operation phoenix, all that jazz. none of them came close to influencing the outcome of the fiasco.

slowly realizing that some people are better-read than you?

could you cite some examples of "conventional soldiers" scoffing at sf and sw? i was aware that this was the case a long time ago, but events have long proved the value of sf, sd, and spec-war.

useful in what? a hostage crisis in an embassy? snatching war criminals from their lairs? these may be significant to you but every important war has always involved at least two nationals openly trying to k*ll each other with light to heavy weapons.

tell me the significance of spec warfare in the following:

first gulf war

aghanistan invasion

iraq invasion

how significant?

tell me one commando operation in world war 2 that could have decided the outcome of the war. how about korea and vietnam?

so, um, do you guys like the richard "sharkman of the delta" marcinko books? or you think he's a fraud.

i read his first four books (the first is autobigraphical, the next three are semi-fiction).

he writes at the eight grade level, though he's supposed to have a masteral degree and fluent in three european languages. he's a master tactician and very good in close quarters combat. he risked his life several times in vietnam; losing only one man under his command during his entire tour of duty.

he's basically my only source when it comes to so-called "commando" tactics. conventional soldiers (the experiinced ones that is) tend to scoff at spec-warfare, often describing it as "indoor games". during world war 2, only the british tried to develop spec war ti full budget (and it's mostly to give glamorous postings to members of the nobility who opted to enlist). the other countries preferred conventional.

i'm still reading my beiser book (physics 73) on the part explaining why photons have zero rest mass but start having mass and increasing as they reach c whereupon mass becomes an undefined 0/0.

time was obviously looking for those who really left a mark in 20th century warfare. the slot for best ground commander was really tough because there were so many candidates (each with their own victories and defeats). it's easier to agree with the other two. strategic bombing and guerilla warfare were unique and potent hallmarks of the last century, and continue to influence today's military strategy.

even the thread question focuses on those who were not necessarily successful but rather those who influenced or revolutionized warfare. for the 20th, the list should include:

1. lemay - strategic bombing

2. yamamoto - naval aviation

3. guderian - mechanized armored warfare

4. barnes wallis - precision bombing

right now, the focus seems to be assymetrical warfare (meaning counter-terrorism) and cyber/electronics. let's see what great general will come out of these.

hard to call the monty thing. i believe monty was as good as any american, german or russian commander during the war. his victories and plans were just not as spectacular as, say, von manstein's in france, guderian and von runstedt in russia or rommel in africa.

but with regard to normandy and arnhem, i would tend to agree with time mag. ike envisioned a direct assault on france from britain but it was monty who did the tactical planning and was in command during the invasion. there was no denying that he was the best and most experienced allied general on the western front. brits just tended to overblow his skills and kept clamoring for montgomery to be appointed overall ground commander (sort of a layer between the army commanders and supreme commander ike). you know the americans wouldn't be able to stomach that. even churchill hated montgomery at times.

time decided to overlook the defeat at arnhem because of its pioneering nature and the fact that it was the basis for several spectacularly successful airborne assaults by the americans in vietnam, the latin americas and the 1991 gulf war.

you guys remember the century/millenium series by time magazine? in the issue dealing with world leaders of the 20th century, there was this small article describing their choices for the top-3 generals of the century. a bit controversial:

1. field marshall bernard law montgomery, viscount of alamein - the century's best ground commander by their reckoning. aside from his undefeated record in north africa and europe, he planned and commanded the two maneuvers that best exemplified the advancement of 20th century ground warfare over previous times: the normandy invasion and the arnhem attack.

2. lt. gen. curtis lemay - for strategic bombing (self-explanatory)

3. general (later minister of science and technology) voh nguyen giap - the guerilla fighter who defeated two superpowers.

according to a survey of the faculty of west point (or was it sandhurst? tagal na kasi), the general with the most #1 votes was belisarius (hehe). consider his record:

1. he wasn't born to power. he rose from the ranks: a general at 25

2. never lost a battle up to the time he stopped in his 60s.

3. in battle he was always outnumbered.

4. his victories made his emperor (justinian) the most powerful roman/byzantine emperor in history. he won back rome from the barbarians, deafeted the persians, took north africa, controlled central and western europe.

sobra ka naman. the "sun tzu" should be automatically taken to mean the book "the art of war".

i used to be into the martial arts and the miyamoto book never impressed me to be anything more than a manual on sword fighting.

the tao of jeet kun do is simply the advance manual. it's similar to mas oyama's series

what is karate?

this is karate

advanced karate

Acthung!

willing to buy old ballantime illustrated warbook series. say, 100 each, up to ten books?

^that's right! you obviously read the book. as a private/sgt. in korea, he joined the turkish contingent and his exploits were legendary. the turkish sultan awarded him with the highest military award from his country. his war in vietnam ended badly but it doesn't remove anything from the man.

"soldier" by lt. col. anthony herbert was the best book i ever read about first person conventional soldiering.

what are the epics you've read (verse form, mind you)? i've read the illiad/oddessey, le mort du arthur, chanson de roland and the song of the niebulongs.

i also read the abridged prose version of the mahaharatta.

was really crazy into sword and armor back in college. thank goodness for the UP main library!

anyone here reads the rogue warrior series by marcinko?

nothing beats,

"we shal fight in the beaches

we shall fight in the landing fields...

we will never surrender!

even if, which for one minute i do not believe,

this country, or a large part of it was subjugated and starving,

then our colonies will continue to fight...

until, i god's time, the young

with all its attendant military might,

will come forth and liberate the old."

ships should be better-armored!

the israeli sa'ar missile boat was a state-of-the-art corvette and one of the most heavily-armed. it had harpoon missiles, gabriel missiles, 75mm guns, CIWS 20mm guns. and what happened? when it came within five miles of the lebanese shore, it was hit and heavily damaged by an iranian c-102 (modified from the chinese silkworm c-802 anti-ship missile.

and that missile wasn't even state-of-the-art.

high technology in sea warfare loses luster when the fighting shifts to near-shore or littoral. in those places, you need lots of muscle (firepower) and a very thick hide (armor). if you think you can prevent the enemy's weapons from reaching you through your own weapons, you're going to get creamed.

what's the difference between relativistic and non-relativistic quantum mechanics?

among the world war two air war books, the most informative i've read was "wing commander", written by a british pilot. i forgot the author's name but he debunked many of my old notions about air warfare. books by galland, sakai and boyington spoke more about personal experience rather than the science of aerial combat.

one of the best novels i've ever read is a war book, "the caine mutiny" by herman wouk.