Bgile:
What makes Manstein brilliant and not Schwartzkopf, for example? Not claiming the latter was brilliant, just wondering. They were both able to destroy an inferior army on the battlefield, and in the US case good staff work was very important in that so much required coordination, including widely disparate armies.
Light years of vast difference. The quality of the Iraqui armies, using the proposed example, was that of a group of soldiers that were used, as in many dictatorships, to suppress civilian populations, not to fight a high tech enemy. Second, Schwatzkopf had the greatest aerial offensive in preparation to his land attack. Third, in the Iraqui case the enemy stood less than a week in the fight and, fourth, the allied forces were unable reach a victorious end by letting Saddam and his guards to live.
Manstein, on the other hand, was able to produce an imaginative plan to overwhelm the French Army, one that one minute before the outbreak of the German offensive, was considered one of the best on Earth. Second, this french army was, numerically, equal to that of the Germans. Third, the Germans did not enjoy, then, the vast technological superiority the US had over Iraq nor the preparatory air campaign of the latter. Fourth, the campaing in France last a little longer than that of Iraq but the Germans, finally, destroyed the french regime and were able to dictate ALL their terms to the french. Fifth, Manstein fought in the greatest campagin ever, 1941 to 1945 (well, he was done by 1944), against the biggest army on Earth, in the greatest front on Earth and in the most significative battles on Earth. He was able to reduce Sevastopol and his fight at Kharkov and Kursk are legendary. And those actions took over the span of years in an attrition campaign that the Americans are not likely to have stood for that long. Let´s remember Vasiliesvsky`s remarks on the western allies weakness.
There is no point of any comparative: just the undeniable truth that WWII was THE global conflict whilst the Iraqui War was a small time war that the US media make look as a fight against the mongols.
And Manstein also managed different armies of different nationalities (with broader differences than the ego of Monty or De Gaulle). Good Staff Work? Of course: von Moltke´s invented the modern staff, so Manstein had a good staff. Also Ike. But Manstein flies circles around Ike in what military performance regards, it´s the man, not the machine.
