Greatest military strategist of all time?

[thebastardsword]

im going to say that hannibal is the greatest general of the ancient world, even better than alexander the great.

[Snagg]

I say Sun Tzu for military thinker. As a general. I'd have to say... a tie between Hannibal and Alexander.

[Ashigaru]

I'd imagine Sun Tzu was a great general since his work has been around for about 2000 years, maybe slightly exagerated. Many great generals had studied The Art of War.

[Forged]

Alexander for ancient times
Rommel for current, or semi-current anyway

[Snagg]

since there are no records of Sun Tzu actually winning wars. I can't really say he's a great general. He could be just an imaginary character taht poets called themselves.

[Bret]

Sun Tzu,

He wasn't a general was he?
Nor did he "win" wars.

He was hired for strat moves.
He was more of a mercenary wasn't he?

I could be mistaken, its been a long time since I've read his works, and others who wrote about him.

[Ashigaru]

He was a general and rulers sought his advice often. I dont know of any wars he won, he lived like 2000 years ago though.

[Tipsy]

Well if we're including the category of how to fight and strategies, than I'd have to disagree with Sun Tzu being the best. For that I am going to have to go with Gandhi. Why him? Because he didn't go out attempting to take over the world, win battles, etc, he fought a just war through non-violence. You might say it wasn't effective, but he inspired many of the countries in the British Empire to become independent and caused much damage to the British Empire without raising a single gun.

For more recent time, I’d have to go with McNamara for the best military strategist. If you don't know who he is, he thought up a very simple strategy and worked it quite well. He invented the strategy of 'Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD)' to fight the Cold War.

[Snagg]

there is no evidence Sun Tzu was actually a real person except for his writing. Could be some poet naming himself Sun Tzu.

[B)ushid(o]

So a poet using the name Sun Tzu, same person, different name... wow so amazing

[Snagg]

Yes. That's what many chinese poets did back in da day.

But I'm sure Sun Tzu was a real person. Although no evidence of it, still I think so.

[Ashigaru]

I’m surprised so many of you have heard of Sunzi. Some transcripts that were found we written in a "Master Sun Said" format. This would lead someone to believe that the art of war was actually written by students of his. Du Mu (I think) thought that Cao Cao had heavily modified it or completely rewritten it., knowing the type of person Cao Cao was I would doubt he'd have second thoughts about doing so.

How many of you have heard of Zhuge Liang, Sima Yi, Cao Cao, and Pang Tong?

I don’t really see Hannibal as a great strategist, he relied mostly on the "OMFG WTF!?!?!?" of the Romans when they saw the elephants.

[Snagg]

w00t goo chinese military warfare.

I'd say they were quite advanced back in those days.

[thebastardsword]

Originally Posted by Ashigaru

I don’t really see Hannibal as a great strategist, he relied mostly on the "OMFG WTF!?!?!?" of the Romans when they saw the elephants.

lets try...

http://www.carpenoctem.tv/military/hannibal.html

http://www.historychannel.com/perl/p...k.pl?ID=211386

There he almost completely annihilated a Roman army of more than 50,000 men under the consuls Lucius Aemilius Paulus (fl. 229–216 bc), who was killed in the battle, and Gaius Terentius Varro (d. after 200 bc), who escaped with the remnant. Carthaginian losses were about 6700 men.

in this battle, he had used NO elephants

Instead of immeiatly assuming hannibal was a horrid general that used elephants to win every major encounter, please do read. I find him to be one of the greatest military strategists of the ancient times. One thing that once it plagues a military force, it devestates it was money.

so please tell me why hannibal isnt a great military strategist...is it because he's not asian?

[Ntrik_]

Im not even sure the guy Im thinking of is Sun Tzu, he probly is, but I know this person had been military strategist for his life, and he had never lost a single battle, and guess how many battles he had? .... countless, Ive read bit of his book, its pretty interesting... (this is BCE, I think)

Theres also one from Three Kingdoms, who follows the teachings of the guy that I just mentioned, (this is around year 190~200 FYI) hell, there were alot of great strategist in this time, all three kingdoms had them, I always wondered how they'd do if they were in the modern times...

but then again.. thers Genghis Khan

[thebastardsword]

what kind of general publishes his own war strategies anyways?

[Ashigaru]

It wasnt so much published as it was passed down and rediscover more recently. For those who doubt Sunzi was a real person there was a Sun clan in china in that period.

[thebastardsword]

how does that prove sunzi existed?

[Snagg]

There was no Sun clan... if you knew what Sun meant... it's just a very common family name back in that era. (All the Chan's and Lee's are very common)

At that time there were 2 very famous military strategists... Sun Tzu and Sun Pin, they weren't related though. Just same family name.

military secrets weren't published. They were kept by emperors and they stored it in very secret places and later rediscovered many generations later.

Emperor Qin was quite the brutal man, he had many neat tricks to defeat the enemy. Hey he's pretty good considering he destroyed all the chinese warring states and unified it.

[Ntrik_]

Originally Posted by Snagg

There was no Sun clan... if you knew what Sun meant... it's just a very common family name back in that era. (All the Chan's and Lee's are very common)

At that time there were 2 very famous military strategists... Sun Tzu and Sun Pin, they weren't related though. Just same family name.

military secrets weren't published. They were kept by emperors and they stored it in very secret places and later rediscovered many generations later.

Emperor Qin was quite the brutal man, he had many neat tricks to defeat the enemy. Hey he's pretty good considering he destroyed all the chinese warring states and unified it.

Maybe you mean Sun Dynasty.. because I do know there was Sun Dynasty or kingdom.. w/e in China

And well, I dont know if I was the one that said "published", but it was more like passed on type thing.. as far as I know, most strategist wrote down journals/"strategy book", which contained all of their battles, casulties, how well they did it, what would happen in result of this, blah blah...