[AdmiralHNelson]

Vatutin Vatutin Vatutin. Two mistakes and many, many huge successes. Most innovative commander of WWII by a long shot. Not a single American or Brit deserves to be on this list. I am an American. You have to read a lot about WWII and particularly the eastern front to know that the Americans and British had it too easy. Manstein may have been better, but with Hitler controlling too many affairs, it is alway impossible to evaluate fully any of German Commander's true potential.

One of the reasons you don't hear about this guy is A) he was Soviet and B) he died at the hands of some partisans in 1944.

His innovations were brilliant.

Lend lease 4% was a myth
34 million uniforms
14.5 pairs of boots
4.2 million tons of food
11.800 railroad locomotives and car
409,000 cargo trucks
47,000 wildly jeeps

Vast quantities of:
Aluminum
Manganese,coal,etc

Sure the planes and armor sucked but that was more because soviets did not allow us to train them and have our techs showing them how to repair them. They were still outclasses, but where key in the battle of Moscow. The radios, other vital communication hardware and infrastructure components, and machine tooling prewar and during was monumental.
The soviet could have won the war without the second front being open and Italy arched but would have lost with 95% probability without the food and supplies of the lend lease program. Those supples made the soviets capable of stopping hitler in front of Moscow, the real turning point not Slalingrad like most non-experts think--and most importantly, enabled the Russians to attack deep into enemy territory due to the cargo trucks and silly jeeps necessary for encirclement and resupply.

"Soviets won the war with their blood and out spam." Period. Sure, the bombing by the RAF at night and US by day prevent antiaircraft from deploying to the eastern front and the breaking of the German code allowed allied supplies to get to Russia, but the soviets were producing so many tanks and aircraft by the time the Allies landed in Italy and France it only shortened the war.

Anyone not understanding these basic points, unfortunately, doesn't know enough about the War to argue which General was best. I may be wrong about my opinion of the best her real because we may be forgetting to establish certain qualifiers, but everything else I have mentioned is cannot be argued and is the obvious facts which all modern WWII experts acknowledge. Modern writings are key because after the fall of the Soviet Union, historian had access to the archives briefly and that access was critical to understanding the state of affairs.

Zhukov had his shinning moments and terrible failures. Rotmiststov was better. The soviets did a good job learning from their mistakes, but if it were not for Vatutin they might not have learned deep penetration with was the key to the Eastern front.