Guest titan Posted January 17, 2000 Share Posted January 17, 2000 As per the last post,One only needs to get the average age of all the generals in WW2,and i think you will find it to be in the early 50's . So the older ones must be a bit more wiser and street smart than your 28 yr old general and at 37 im still a pup. Even the generals in todays armies are getting into the twilight years. ------------------ AUCK New Zealand Superpower waiting to happen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goanna Posted January 17, 2000 Share Posted January 17, 2000 What rubbish. Just the sort of thing we'd expect from a kiwi. Read all the books, but just looked at the pictures. Aren't all peace time armies filled with a lot of career guys getting older, and wouldn't a lot of them be quite useless on the battlefield. * All nationalistic content should be viewed in the manner intended. ------------------ desert rat wannabe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berlichtingen Posted January 17, 2000 Share Posted January 17, 2000 Napoleon crushed the older generals of the first few coalitions... what does this prove? Napoleon was good. Age is unimportant... talent is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MajorH Posted January 17, 2000 Share Posted January 17, 2000 Talent plus experience. ------------------ Best regards, Major H majorh@mac.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest titan Posted January 17, 2000 Share Posted January 17, 2000 Rubish ????Horse **** goanna Look at the british and yanky general in kosovo and wasnt Norman swartz in desert storm getting on,They were great generals, Just face it i hardly know of any gernerals around 30ish and if so very few. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berlichtingen Posted January 17, 2000 Share Posted January 17, 2000 <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>british and yanky general in kosovo and wasnt Norman swartz in desert storm getting on,They were great generals<HR></BLOCKQUOTE> Ummm out of curiosity, what would make you call them great? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
StuNZ Posted January 17, 2000 Share Posted January 17, 2000 I'd have thought (at least in peace-time, less so during world war II) that the age of generals is more determined by the position being vacated by it's current holder (either via retirement, or dead man's shoes), and that this makes for slow advancement through the ranks to get there in the first place. It would be interesting to see what the average age of German generals did as the war turned against them, particularly in late 44/45 ... Oh and to our benightened neighbours across the ditch ... at least we Kiwis are one up on ya - we actually have books * All Australian bashing should be viewed as a Kiwi's first duty Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bastables Posted January 17, 2000 Share Posted January 17, 2000 Dam ye Goanna, you impudent swine ! You dare to impugn the literacy of an entire nation! You spawn of criminals and riff-raff should know not to question your betters. My blood boils at this, this slander. There will be an accounting aussie scum. Huzza! I'm a member [This message has been edited by Bastables (edited 01-17-2000).] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Speedy Posted January 17, 2000 Share Posted January 17, 2000 So an accounting Bastables. How about a game of cricket? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
howardb Posted January 17, 2000 Share Posted January 17, 2000 Yeah age must be the way to go. Anyone remember the guy in charge of the defence of france btw? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AndyRoss Posted January 17, 2000 Share Posted January 17, 2000 What was so skillful about the Kosovan operation? A neat sideswipe by the Russians caused a great deal of embarassment and British troops went in dismally equipped... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Major Tom Posted January 17, 2000 Share Posted January 17, 2000 Yeah, howardb, I think he was in his mid 120's. Was that a rhetorical question? Do I know what rhetorical means! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doug Beman Posted January 17, 2000 Share Posted January 17, 2000 StuNZ has it right, I believe. Rank advancement in a peacetime army is very slow, which tends to drive up the avg age for each rank. Once war breaks out and it is discovered that some (many?) of those who earned their stars simply by being a soldier for a zillion years, the avg age probably drops as the younger colonels prove themselves fit commanders, or older ones are sidelined by medical troubles (Rommel was stopped more effectively by exhaustion than by Allied guns, IMHO) DjB Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Goanna Posted January 17, 2000 Share Posted January 17, 2000 Oh, my hairy flightless friend (Titan), such a pity that you don't recognise the evidence that was right before you at the time. In both Desert Storm and Kosovo the US only needed a relatively small number of senior officers, so they were able to scour their entire army for the one they wanted to lead. It just so happens that they picked Norman due to the fact that he was probably decent commander, had done his time and kissed the right butts and was also one of the only US officers to have lived in Iraq before. Were they required to use an army or corps size force and the conflict took more than 100 hrs, I am sure they would have had to use a larger range of their officer corps, and would have exposed some less than successful commanders, both young and old. PS: the preferred spelling of rubbish is as I have provided previously. Perhaps now that you have a Labour leader they will reinstitute spelling in NZ public schools. Now, wheres that flogging I was promised from one of you kiwis that take animal husbandry a bit too literally? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Neutral Party Posted January 17, 2000 Share Posted January 17, 2000 IMHO - On the whole younger generals will be better because only an exceptional individual becomes a general at a young age whereas an "old guy" eventually gets to be a general simply by not falling off his (horse/tank/mistress) for a longer time than his peers. Joe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest titan Posted January 18, 2000 Share Posted January 18, 2000 Get real ,those guys are generals on merit and past performance,im sure there are a few good younger ones but as a general rule they are older and thats what we are disscussing. And as for you Goanna,i think the Aussie army in east timor has shown the world what an Aussie is all about .Cant hold there Beer for a start. And the with all that inbreeding the criminal inside each one comes out,It aint there fault though we all new something like this would happen it's just genetic's ------------------ AUCK New Zealand Superpower waiting to happen Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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