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Why "bad enemy leadership" makes sense in Safehold

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Re: Why "bad enemy leadership" makes sense in Safehold
Post by Panzer   » Fri Feb 28, 2020 1:54 am

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n7axw wrote:Just another comment on this... About Churchill... As a military leader, he sucked. Whenever he interfered, he screwed things up. But as a political leader, he was exactly what was needed at the moment, the man of the hour. I doubt that anyone could have rallied the British public like he did.

Don

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At least the Brits didn't have MacArthur...

:roll:
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Re: Why "bad enemy leadership" makes sense in Safehold
Post by n7axw   » Sat Feb 29, 2020 8:26 am

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Panzer wrote:
n7axw wrote:Just another comment on this... About Churchill... As a military leader, he sucked. Whenever he interfered, he screwed things up. But as a political leader, he was exactly what was needed at the moment, the man of the hour. I doubt that anyone could have rallied the British public like he did.

Don

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At least the Brits didn't have MacArthur...

:roll:


Mr. "I shall return"... He was an arrogant sob, wasn't he? My dad served in the Pacific in the navy. He thought MacArthur was next to God. Never caught on to the reality that was what MacArthur wanted him to think.

Don

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Don
When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: Why "bad enemy leadership" makes sense in Safehold
Post by SilverbladeTE   » Sat Feb 29, 2020 8:34 pm

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If MacArthur had died of "colorectal implosion syndrome" :lol: , things might have turned out a LOT better for America and the Allies in the Pacific!

He was the most useless sod there was in that war, far as I can tell, sigh, and that's saying something, considering the number of idiots there were on all sides.
MacArthur did FAR more good for the Japanese than anyone else.

Gotta luv a leader who's more concerned with redoing his "heroic landings" several times to get the photos right, rather than like, actually lead, or follow orders.... :roll:

Philippines and Korea, totally SNAFUed because of that monumentally arrogant jackass :/
I do so enjoy alt history stories where he gets whacked, humiliated etc, lol :twisted:
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Re: Why "bad enemy leadership" makes sense in Safehold
Post by n7axw   » Sun Mar 01, 2020 2:46 pm

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SilverbladeTE wrote:If MacArthur had died of "colorectal implosion syndrome" :lol: , things might have turned out a LOT better for America and the Allies in the Pacific!

He was the most useless sod there was in that war, far as I can tell, sigh, and that's saying something, considering the number of idiots there were on all sides.
MacArthur did FAR more good for the Japanese than anyone else.

Gotta luv a leader who's more concerned with redoing his "heroic landings" several times to get the photos right, rather than like, actually lead, or follow orders.... :roll:

Philippines and Korea, totally SNAFUed because of that monumentally arrogant jackass :/
I do so enjoy alt history stories where he gets whacked, humiliated etc, lol :twisted:


Well, your last paragraph seems a bit overdone. He was facing impossible situation in 41. In 44 he did successfully liberate Philippines or at minimum deserves credit for leading invasion force.

In Korea, he was removed not for incompetence, but for forgetting who was president... monumentally arrogant jackass is a pretty good description, though. That was what caused the problem leading to his removal.

Don

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When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: Why "bad enemy leadership" makes sense in Safehold
Post by Robert_A_Woodward   » Mon Mar 02, 2020 2:25 am

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n7axw wrote:
SilverbladeTE wrote:If MacArthur had died of "colorectal implosion syndrome" :lol: , things might have turned out a LOT better for America and the Allies in the Pacific!

He was the most useless sod there was in that war, far as I can tell, sigh, and that's saying something, considering the number of idiots there were on all sides.
MacArthur did FAR more good for the Japanese than anyone else.

Gotta luv a leader who's more concerned with redoing his "heroic landings" several times to get the photos right, rather than like, actually lead, or follow orders.... :roll:

Philippines and Korea, totally SNAFUed because of that monumentally arrogant jackass :/
I do so enjoy alt history stories where he gets whacked, humiliated etc, lol :twisted:


Well, your last paragraph seems a bit overdone. He was facing impossible situation in 41. In 44 he did successfully liberate Philippines or at minimum deserves credit for leading invasion force.

In Korea, he was removed not for incompetence, but for forgetting who was president... monumentally arrogant jackass is a pretty good description, though. That was what caused the problem leading to his removal.

Don

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According to somebody who did a lot of research, MacArthur bungled the defense of the Philippines (and he repeated many of the mistakes in Korea).
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Beowulf was bad.
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Re: Why "bad enemy leadership" makes sense in Safehold
Post by n7axw   » Mon Mar 02, 2020 11:23 am

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Sometimes these things become a matter of bias. I'm not pro -MacArthur, but it remains true that given the resources he had at his disposal, the outcome in the Philippines was going to be what happened no matter what he did.

As for Korea, he did successfully orchestrate the Inchon landings and the breakout from Pusan. Crossing the 38th parallel and pushing North wasn't his call, IIRC. A bad decision in hindsight, but the blame for that one is higher up the foodchain.

The issue with MacArthur in the final analysis was insubordination and ignoring orders from his commander in chief, the President. Truman was completely right to sack him.

Don

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When any group seeks political power in God's name, both religion and politics are instantly corrupted.
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Re: Why "bad enemy leadership" makes sense in Safehold
Post by SilverbladeTE   » Mon Mar 02, 2020 6:22 pm

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Robert_A_Woodward wrote:
According to somebody who did a lot of research, MacArthur bungled the defense of the Philippines (and he repeated many of the mistakes in Korea).


Yup, such as, disobeying direct orders before the hostilities began
refusing to send recon missions
stopping aircraft getting OFF THE GROUND before an attack wiped most of them out
etc

man's legacy of uselessness is extreme :( :roll:
typical entitled jackass who wrecks things for those around (Britain had serious problems with its senior military).

every side had idiots and of course, leaders who had flaws.
but McArthur really set the low bar for bad military leadership in WW2
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Re: Why "bad enemy leadership" makes sense in Safehold
Post by Michae   » Tue Mar 03, 2020 9:16 pm

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SilverbladeTE wrote:
Robert_A_Woodward wrote:
According to somebody who did a lot of research, MacArthur bungled the defense of the Philippines (and he repeated many of the mistakes in Korea).


Yup, such as, disobeying direct orders before the hostilities began
refusing to send recon missions
stopping aircraft getting OFF THE GROUND before an attack wiped most of them out
etc

man's legacy of uselessness is extreme :( :roll:
typical entitled jackass who wrecks things for those around (Britain had serious problems with its senior military).

every side had idiots and of course, leaders who had flaws.
but McArthur really set the low bar for bad military leadership in WW2


I don't think most of the military here in Australia had fond memories of working with him either,as he seems to give orders that were utterly divorced from reality in every area. Not that he didn't have help from some of our senior generals as well,but from what I've heard,the soldiers in the field viewed him as incompetent in every respect.
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Re: Why "bad enemy leadership" makes sense in Safehold
Post by SilverbladeTE   » Thu Mar 05, 2020 3:49 am

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The Western Allies didn't really have many, if any, truly great "combat generals"
Patton was a great "cavalry regiment leader", but at a higher level he wasn't good I don't think.
If Patton been facing say, Guderian on equal terms he'd probably have got his men in a sack.

Eisenhower though I think is very under appreciated at his great effort and skill of getting such a group of often very fractious groups to cooperate.
A "strategic" general and coordinator (and extremely good President, too)
Bet the poor guy had to chew aspirin and alka-seltzer constantly to deal with all the headaches and crap, lol
Being caught between the flaming egos of Montgomery and Patton, never mind De Gaulle...yikes!!! :shock:
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Re: Why "bad enemy leadership" makes sense in Safehold
Post by Julia Minor   » Sun Mar 08, 2020 3:55 pm

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SilverbladeTE wrote:Eisenhower though I think is very under appreciated at his great effort and skill of getting such a group of often very fractious groups to cooperate.
A "strategic" general and coordinator (and extremely good President, too)
Bet the poor guy had to chew aspirin and alka-seltzer constantly to deal with all the headaches and crap, lol
Being caught between the flaming egos of Montgomery and Patton, never mind De Gaulle...yikes!!! :shock:


A joke thread I once read started out with the comment that had Monty written a memoir, it would have been titled "How I Won The War". The first response was that if Patton had written a memoir, it would have been titled "How I Won The Damn War Despite Monty". The next post was that Eisenhower should have titled his memoir "Why I Am Bald".
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