re: Who is the GOAT of all U.S generals?

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Grant's reputation as a hard-fighting butcher with no regard for losses was created by Southern historians of the war in the latter half of the 19th century. This couldn't be further from the truth. The way he was trying to fight the Overland Campaign - attempting to flank around behind Lee and forcing him to fight an offensive battle on the Union's terms - should be clear that he wasn't some heartless man with no regard for human life.

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His tactics at Cold Harbor and Spotsylvania CH invited those allegations. It was pure butchery with zero subtlety.

You can argue he was willing to lose more men quickly to lose fewer in future (hopefully) unfought battles, but you would have to apply that same logic to the WW1 generals fighting at Verdun by "bleeding the enemy white".

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Chesty Puller deserves mention

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no he doesnt.

I think we're talking around each other. I agree with all of your points.

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Then help me understand why Grant “needed” to make multiple attacks on an entrenched position at Cold Harbor? He had the numbers to fix Lee there and flank back towards where he had come from using Sheridan and infantry. He deserves criticism for that decision just like Lee does for basically everything he did at Gettysburg. Because they were both unnecessary and did not offer good odds for providing their army a victory at a reasonable cost.

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I didn’t say Grant was perfect. In fact, earlier I didn’t even list him as the best Civil War general. He did make mistakes. Attacking Lee’s entrenched infantry repeatedly at Cold Harbor is a prime example.

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at the end of the day, it’s the boots on the ground that hold territory and the Soviets started winning after they were bombed in oblivion.

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Again, the Russians would not have had any boots at all, much less train and truck transport, food, ammo, heavy weapons, clothing and avgas if we hadn’t given it to them. Without it, they would have folded.

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Again, the Russians would not have had any boots at all, much less train and truck transport, food, ammo, heavy weapons, clothing and avgas if we hadn’t given it to them. Without it, they would have folded.

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That would have been an interesting angle to that conflict. The Soviet Army no longer having the backing of Lend Lease.

They didn't have a problem producing heavy weapons (tanks, planes, artillery) with the caveat of how much of that depended on rare earth metals, but they did not have the same capacity in producing trucks, trains, food, clothing, and avgas.

The US may still have come out on top, but even the drawbacks mentioned would not have blunted the Soviet war machine right away. My guess is there would have been really terrible fighting for 6 months to a year.

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Which is why I say forrest.

He understood logistics. After constantly being given inexperienced soldiers, he still fought his way into and out of situations inflicting considerably more damage than he took.

It could even be argued that when he had the numerical and material advantage over his foes... He was considerably less successful.

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Kind of touches on the concept that some exceptionally successful guerilla style military leaders wouldn't "scale" to handle a traditional military leadership role as naturally as we might assume.

There is a very long list of outstanding company leaders who failed as regimental leaders and corp commanders who failed horrifically as army commanders, etc.

That said, I think if you give Forrest command of the Union cavalry in 1864/1865 Virginia with autonomy like he had for the Confederacy out west the war might've ended much earlier than it did.

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That would have been an interesting angle to that conflict. The Soviet Army no longer having the backing of Lend Lease.

but they did not have the same capacity in producing trucks, trains, food, clothing, and avgas.

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Didn't the Germans largely fail to extract much if any useable petroleum from the Caucasus/Baku oil fields due to the soviets effective sabotage efforts when they fell to the Nazi's?

Without allied gas supplies it is a very valid question if the Soviets could've operated their field armies for a few years until their petroleum supplies came back online assuming they were unable to take the middle east.

Petroleum supply was the determining factor for post D-Day allied planning in France as the supply lines extended towards Germany, its a very real question what the Soviets could've done as extended as they were into a ravaged eastern Europe.

I still say millions of Americans would've died to push them back to Ukraine, but logistics is a very interesting factor.

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Do yall think a lot about military leaders?

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I have read every major book about the Battle of Midway that I know of. I often think of all the mis-communication in that battle and realize how tenuous the lives of so many people were affected in the four hours of intense air battle leading up to the four minutes of real time it took to render the greatest Navy of its era, virtually useless by sinking THREE carriers and a fourth later that day.

What must have been going thru the mind of Nimitz back in Pearl without any real time information as the battle commenced, Halsey in a hospital room in Pearl while "his" fleet was in battle, Spruance who was commanding a Carrier group for the first time in his life, Stanhope Ring's ignorant arse and the flight to nowhere, Wade McClusky who found the carrier group and attacked as his bomber squadron was on fumes and Dickie Best who was part of that squadron of dive bombers and is credited with sinking two aircraft carriers in one day, only to never fly again after breathing caustic soda into his lungs from a faulty oxygen system, and Max Leslie, whose dive bomb was dropped from his plane while arming it by a faulty electric arming switch, but chose to attack a carrier without any ordinance just to be able to lead his men on the attack and strafe the carrier with machine gun fire.

So yeah, I think about it from time to time.