Choose one!

True, you did. But no one else seems to think so. Hence my joy!

Holland M. Smith was a general in the United States Marine Corps. He commanded the ground troops in all of the major American amphibious landings in the Pacific, although his active role was rather curtailed after Saipan. During th battle for that island, he relieved the commander of a US Army division because he felt that the soldiers weren't moving as fast as they could and were causing his Marines to suffer unnecessary casualties. You can imagine the reaction of the Army brass when they found out that one of their generals had been relieved by a mere Marine! Smith single-handedly saved the Tarawa invasion from disaster by insisting that more LVTs be provided for the initial assault troops, because he listened to reports from an expert about a very low tide that sometimes occured in the Gilbert Islands at the season the invasion was to take place. Had he not done so, more Marines would have embarked in conventional landing craft, which could not have reached the beach due to insufficient water over the reef at Betio, forcing the first wave assault troops to wade over 100 yards through chest deep water under fire (a lot of the follow up waves had to do this anyway). His nickname was "Howlin' Mad" Smith, due to his volcanic temper. He wrote a book after the war, "Coral and Brass".

 

But this man was a desk commander right? Not much of an attack general you'd choose to fight for you in the field. I mean, surely his skill was great and his command inspiring, but it doesn't seem to me like this man would do anything but command his beloved marines in amphibious assualts, and from a distance.

 

He was and wasn't a desk commander. He did have to remain aboard ship for as long as possible, but he did go ashore as soon as he could. And nowhere on an island during one of the Pacific amphibious landings could be called 100% safe.

 

Offense = Zhukov

Defense = Wavell

 

I'd hate to be a soldier in a Zhukov-planned offensive.
Although better than most Soviet comanders, he was rather carfree with the lives of his men.

 

He's good at organizing the offensive, better than a whole lot of commanders of his day and not just Russian ones. But indeed I'd hate to be a lower part of his plans, because that was the same as an expendable part, to him. Or at least it seems so, from his famous quote about minefields.

Wavell, now there's an interesting choice. Could you explain that one, Ritterkreuz? Welcome to the forum by the way!

I still can't understand why you all choose others that Hienrici for your defences; he's just the best one around for your last stand! No one defended better than Heinrici, period.

 

Maybe i have bad information. But was he commander of defensing Tobruk ? :-?

 

He had overall command then, yes. But he mainly just ordered the city to be held, and the divisional and Army Corps commanders within the encirclement gave the orders that saved the city. I think the defence of it must be credited to the Australians and other Commonwealth troops that did it in person.

 

The troops were Aussies but not too sure about the commander.

 

When Italy declared war on June 10, 1940 against Britain and France, The British position in North Africa seemed hopelessly outmatched. UK Army General Percival Wavell commanded 40,000 Dominion soldiers caught between 200,000 Italian troops in Libya and 250,000 to the south in Ethiopia and Somaliland.

Wavell made a bold gamble on June 10, sending a small force into Libya to show the flag. This was the opening battle in a long campaign that would frustrate both the Allied and the Axis.

The Italians under Marshal d’Armata Rodolfo Graziani invaded and occupied British Somaliland on August 17, 1940, possibly cutting off American merchant transit through the Red Sea and cutting of the British from India. On September 13, Graziani reluctantly invaded Egypt under pressure from Mussolini.

Wavell sent 30,000 troops on December 9 under UK Army General Richard O’Connor to reclaim Sidi Barrani, Egypt, 65 miles inside Egypt’s border with Libya. The Italians had heavily fortified the town, but the British caught them by surprise and took 20,000 prisoners. The enterprising O’Connor then turned the large-scale raid into a full-scale invasion of Libya, taking more prisoners and occupying Tobruk , Benghazi, and the whole of the Libyan province of Cyrenaica. 130,000 Italian prisoners march towards Egypt.

Then, a major shift in the balance of power occurred. Wavell was ordered to cut back his forces and send them to Greece. Hitler sent the Afrika Korps to help the Italians, led by the effective Generalleutnant Erwin Rommel. Rommel arrived on February 12, 1941. Technically under Italian command, Rommel led an armored attack that smashed through the smaller British force, capturing O’Connor and almost all of the British conquests except for the embattled port of Tobruk. The British settled in for a long siege.

Churchill overruled his advisors and sent precious military supplies and weapons to Wavell, who tried twice to beat his way through Rommel to Tobruk. Rommel developed new doctrines of desert warfare, using antiaircraft guns against tanks and employing Blitzkrieg tactics to outflank the British. Wavell had to resign in the face of these defeats.

General Sir Claude Auchinleck arrived in November 1941. The UK Desert Force became the UK Eighth Army. In Operation Crusader, he lifted the 242-day siege of Tobruk, drove Rommel back against El Agheila, and destroyed a quarter of the Afrika Korps and almost half of the Italian Army in Libya.

But the British were hard pressed to supply both Auchinleck and the island of Malta. Rommel consolidated his forces, resupplied, and burst forth from El Agheila, taking Benghazi and driving on Tobruk. The British fell back on the Gazala Line, a series of forts linked by minefields.

Both sides paused to regroup and strengthen their forces. On May 26, 1942, Rommel renewed the attack, but was blocked by strong resistance and caught between two strongpoints on the Gazala Line. Living up to his nickname of the “Desert Fox,” Rommel wheeled on the British, smashed the defenders of Bir Hacheim, and took Tobruk on June 17. Rommel captured 30,000 defenders and captured the supply dump there.

Hitler promoted Rommel to Feldmarschall. “It would be better if he sent me another division.” Rommel remarked when he was told of his new rank. The British fell back on their first line of defense in Egypt, Mersa Matruh, and Rommel followed. The line fell at the end of June 1942.

Rommel was beginning to stretch his supply lines, despite capturing huge stores of British supplies along the way. He could not break the El Alamein line, the last defense before Alexandria. Churchill sacked Auchinleck and replaced him with General William Gott, who was killed in a plane crash while taking command.

Churchill, shaken by the fall of Tobruk, searched for a man to replace Gott who could save Alexandria and the whole of Egypt from surrender. He chose UK Lieutenant General Bernard Law Montgomery, who spent a lot of time reorganizing and retraining the Eighth Army. On August 31, 1942, Rommel struck the El Alamein line, and was repulsed by heavy artillery fire.

Both men recognized that the character of the North African war would be marked by the personalities of these two men. Both sides prepared for the second Battle of El Alamein.

From http://www.worldwar2database.com/html/africa.htm

 

UK General Claude Auchinleck, hampered by the siphoning of his men and equipment to support the abortive Greek campaign, had lost all the British gains of 1941 to the fast-driving Rommel. In June 1942 Auchinleck had fallen back to the last line of defense before Alexandria: El Alamein was town 65 miles to the west, bounded by the Qattara Depression, terrain impassible to tanks. He was sacked and returned home.

Rommel, following the British, hit the El Alamein line on July 1, 1942. The Afrika Korps was so far from their supply lines they could not make a serious attempt to break through. Rommel dug in, and created a defensive line of mines, antitank guns, tanks, and infantry.

When Auchinleck’s replacement was killed, Churchill appointed Lieutenant General Bernard L. Montgomery to command the Eighth Army on August 12, 1942. He took command of a thoroughly exhausted army with low morale. He claimed El Alamein would be the decisive battle of the war.

With characteristic deliberateness, Montgomery sought to rebuild the fighting spirit of the Eighth Army. Waiting for reinforcements, especially American tanks, Montgomery retrained his army for two months. British High Command and Churchill were growing impatient, and encouraged him to move. Montgomery took his time, as he would in France two years later.

On October 23, 1942, Montgomery start Operation Lightfoot. Commonwealth Forces moved against Rommel’s line after four hours of artillery bombardment by 1,000 guns. Sappers crawled on their hands and knees, feeling for mines by hand to cut two corridors across the minefields for tanks.

Little progress was made against the Afrika Korps. The plan was shifted to the south when Australians penetrated deep into German territory. Montgomery built up his forces there, and attacked on November 2. Rommel attacked with all his tanks, and lost heavily.

Hitler told Rommel to stand and die in El Alamein, but he disobeyed orders and retreated on November 4. Four days later Americans began landing in North Africa, and the Afrika Korps began its expulsion from North Africa. Months of hard fighting were ahead for both sides.

El Alamein was the last major battle in the war that was exclusively a Commonwealth affair. After that, the Americans would begin to contribute the major balance of men and materiel to the war.

 

attack-rommel
defence-checkov(think thats how you spell it)

 

do you mean Chuikov? (Problem is with Cyrillic to Roman translations different spellings crop up!)

 

he stooped facists at stalingrad

 

Offensive-Rommel
Defensive-Kelsering

 

Offensive-Guderian
Defensive-Model

 

All-round?

Slim.

 

All around
Manstein

Defense:
Govorov ( took over Leningrad defense after Zhukov)

Offense:
Patton

 

Offense - Rommel or Guderian

Defense - McArthur or Chuikov

All round - Montgomery or Zhukov

Would like to know how O'Connor's career would have panned out had he not been captured so early

 

I'm not seeing enough Heinrici on the defence choices here! Come on people, he was the only true defence specialist of WW2 and capable of holding out against practically anything if left a free hand (except of course when outnumbered 6 to 1 and without any serious equipment to help his defences).