Top 10 Military Field Tacticians - Listverse

There were two Roman Generals named Scipio who were given the additional title Africanus SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL
1st Scipio Africanus the Elder, Latin Scipio Africanus Major, in full Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus (born 236 bce—died 183 bce,
He had an illustrious, honorable and valorous military career which culminated when "After training his army in new tactics, Scipio defeated the Carthaginian commander Hasdrubal Barca at Baecula (Bailen) in Baetica (208); whereas normally the two rear ranks of a Roman army closely supported the front line, Scipio in this battle, under a screen of light troops, divided his main forces, which fell upon the enemy’s flanks. When Hasdrubal broke away, ultimately to join his brother Hannibal in Italy, Scipio wisely declined the impossible task of trying to stop him and decided rather to accomplish his mission in Spain—the defeat of the other two Carthaginian armies still there. This he brilliantly achieved in 206 at the Battle of Ilipa (Alcalá del Río, near Sevilla). Over several days of posturing and light skirmishing between the arrayed armies, Scipio lulled the Carthaginian commanders—Hasdrubal (son of Gisco) and Mago—into a sense of routine. On the day of the battle, Scipio dramatically altered that routine, arriving in full force at dawn and changing the order of his troops so that where he was strong the Carthaginians were weak. He used his Roman veterans to execute a series of audacious flanking maneuvers while his fickle Spanish allies held the enemy’s main forces in place. The Carthaginian armies were destroyed, and Hasdrubal and Mago fled the field. Scipio then secured Gades (Cádiz), thus making Roman control of Spain complete."
Battle of Zama "After Scipio’s capture of Tunis, the Carthaginians sought peace terms, but Hannibal’s subsequent return to Africa led to their renewing the war in 202. Hannibal was placed in command of an army of many raw recruits and 80 untrained elephants. Scipio advanced southwestward to join Masinissa, who was taking his invaluable cavalry to Scipio’s support. Then Scipio turned eastward to face Hannibal at Zama, having secured the better watering holes and the best terrain. In the first phase of the battle, Scipio largely neutralized the feared Carthaginian war elephants by using skirmishers to draw them into corridors between the densely packed heavy infantry, thus minimizing their impact on the battle. The Battle of Zama also demonstrated that Rome held the advantage in cavalry (especially with the addition of Masinissa’s Numidians) that Hannibal had previously exploited. Taking advantage of the confusion in the wake of the elephant charge, Scipio’s cavalry fell on the Carthaginian horsemen, driving them from the field. At first, Scipio’s outflanking tactics failed against the master from whom he had learned them, because Hannibal widened his lines and did not allow his first two ranks of soldiers to back up, instead pushing them forward and out to the sides, with his veterans at the rear. The issue was decided when the Roman and Numidian cavalry, having broken off pursuit of the Punic horsemen, fell on the rear of Hannibal’s army. Roman victory was complete, and the long war ended; Scipio granted comparatively lenient terms to Carthage and to Hannibal personally. According to Polybius, this battle marked the first time a Roman could envision a global perspective of future empire. In honour of his victory, Scipio was named Africanus."
2nd Scipio Africanus the Younger, also called Scipio Aemilianus, Latin Scipio Africanus Minor, in full Publius Cornelius Scipio Aemilianus Africanus (Numantinus) (born 185/184 bc—died 129 bc, Rome) Roman general famed both for his exploits during the Third Punic War (149–146 bc) and for his subjugation of Spain (134–133 bc). He received the name Africanus and celebrated a triumph in Rome after his destruction of Carthage (146 bc). He acquired the (unofficial) name Numantinus for his reduction of Spanish Numantia (133 bc).
"Serving as military tribune to Lucius Lucullus, Scipio displayed great personal courage in the Spanish campaigns; in 151 he killed a Spanish chieftain who had challenged him to single combat, and at Intercatia he won the mural crown (corona muralis), which was awarded to the first man to mount the walls of an enemy town. In 150 he was sent by Lucullus to Africa to obtain some elephants from the Numidian king Masinissa, the friend of his grandfather Africanus. While there he witnessed a great but indecisive battle between Masinissa and the Carthaginians; the latter then asked him to arrange a settlement, but, in the event, negotiations broke down. Scipio then left Africa, but he was soon to return not as a peacemaker but as a conqueror. When back in Rome, at Polybius’ request, he managed to gain the somewhat grudging support of old Cato (whose son had married Scipio’s sister Aemilia) for a proposal to release the 300 Achaean internees who still survived without trial. They had been held in Italy since the end of the Third Macedonian War (171–168). Thus a great blot on Rome’s good name was at length partially removed.
In 150 war with Carthage was in the air. When it eventually broke out the following year, Scipio returned to Africa with the Roman army, serving again as military tribune, and his service was very effective. The two consuls besieged Carthage by land and sea, but later in the year, after one had returned to Rome, the Carthaginians launched a night attack upon the camp of the isolated Manilius, a situation that was retrieved only by the skill of Scipio. During the winter Scipio again displayed conspicuous ability when Manilius led two unsuccessful expeditions against the Carthaginian forces in the interior. Again he came into the limelight when the aged Masinissa, on the point of death, asked that the grandson of his friend Africanus arrange the future of his kingdom. Scipio decided to divide Numidia between the king’s three sons and thereby avoided any danger that a united Numidia might have presented."
"Destruction of Carthage
As the war against Carthage dragged on without decisive result, Scipio resolved to return to Rome in 148 to stand for the curule aedileship, but such was his military record and the general disappointment with the conduct of the war that the Roman people wanted to see him in command. Because he was at least five years under the legal minimum age for the consulship and had not been praetor, his election as consul for 147 was contrary to the rules for holding office (cursus honorum). When a tribune, voicing the popular enthusiasm, threatened to veto the consular elections unless Scipio was accepted as a candidate, the Senate gave way and allowed the tribunes to introduce a bill to exempt Scipio from the legal restrictions; he was thus elected consul and given the African command.
Once back in Africa, he determined to starve out Carthage with a blockade by land and sea; gradually the cordon was drawn tighter around the beleaguered city, and in the spring of 146 it fell to his final assault: after six days of street fighting the citadel was captured and Carthage was destroyed. As Scipio surveyed the burning city and meditated on the fall of great nations, he wept and, grasping the hand of Polybius (the historian himself records the incident), said: “it is glorious, but I have a dread foreboding that some time the same doom will be pronounced upon my own country.” After arranging for the organization of Carthaginian territory as the new Roman province of Africa, Scipio returned to Rome for a triumph and to be hailed as the second Africanus.
Thus, before the age of 40, Scipio had gained Rome’s final victory over Carthage and had become a popular hero, but he still had many opponents in the Senate. He soon reached the crown of a noble’s career by his election to the censorship of 142, though the other censor—Lucius Mummius, who had brought peace to Greece by his sack of Corinth—was not a welcome colleague. Scipio carried out his censorial duties with sternness, in the spirit of the censorship of Cato, who had lived just long enough to express approval of Scipio’s African command."
COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. Capt Seid Waddell CW5 (Join to see) CW5 Charlie Poulton CSM Charles Hayden SGM David W. Carr LOM, DMSM MP SGT SFC William Farrell SSgt Robert Marx SSG James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4" SSgt (Join to see) TSgt Joe C. SGT John " Mac " McConnell SP5 Mark Kuzinski SGT Forrest Stewart SGT Robert Hawks SPC (Join to see) SrA Christopher Wright

SFC Joe S. Davis Jr., MSM, DSL this list by listverse includes men who excelled at the tactical and strategic levels of combat. I would add the following as part of the top twenty tacticians.
1. From the US Civil War I would add Federal Cavalry Major General Phil Sheridan and Confederate Lieutenant General Nathan Bedford Forrest were both masterful tacticians.
2. British Army General Richard O'Connor - Commander of the Western Desert Force and escaped POW. In WWI North African "shortly after the Italian entry into the war in Jun 1940, O'Connor was made the commanding officer of the Western Desert Force. The Italians attacked Egypt on 13 Sep 1940, moving 60 miles into Egypt and capturing Sidi Barrani. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general in Nov 1940. Through Operation Compass launched in Dec 1940, however, he was able to push the Italians back into Libya, capturing large numbers of prisoners meanwhile. In early Jan 1941, the Western Desert Force was redesignated XIII Corps, and on 9 Jan he continued the offensive, capturing Tobruk on 22 Jan and then securing a surrender from a large group of surviving Italians on 7 Feb. The offensive campaign he orchestrated advanced 800 miles, captured 130,000 prisoners, captured 400 tanks, and captured 1,292 guns, all at the cost of only about 1,800 casualties (500 killed). For his achievement, he was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath. In Feb 1941, after the offensive was halted due to the situation in Greece, he was made the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief the British Troops in Egypt. In Mar, newly arrived German General Erwin Rommel launched an offensive toward Egypt, and O'Connor moved forward to advise Lieutenant General Philip Neame on defenses. On 6 Apr, O'Connor and Neame, while travelling to their headquarters which had been withdrawn from Maraua to Timimi in Libya, were captured by a German patrol near Martuba. He would spend the following two and half years as a prisoner of war, being held at Castello di Vincigliata near Florence, Italy for a large portion of that time. After failing to escape by climbing the castle walls, he was punished with a month's solitary confinement. Although he was initially successful with his second attempt by using a tunnel he and others dug between Oct 1942 and Mar 1943, he and Major General Adrian Carton de Wiart were captured at Bologna, Italy; this resulted in another month's solitary confinement. In Sep 1943, he made his third escape attempt while being transferred to another place of imprisonment, reaching General Harold Alexander at Bari, Italy on 21 Dec 1943. O'Connor was given command of VIII Corps in Jan 1944. With this corps, he arrived in Normandie, France on 11 Jun 1944 and directed Operation Epsom, Operation Jupiter, and Operation Goodwood. The VIII Corps was placed in reserve in Aug 1944, but he remained an unofficial adviser to Bernard Montgomery. VIII Corps played a minor role in Operation Market Garden, during which it indirectly supported the XXX Corps. In Nov 1944, he was relieved of his command of VIII Corps and was made the commanding officer of Eastern Command in India. It was said that Montgomery was not entirely pleased with O'Connor's performance, and either made no protest when Field Marshal Alan Brooke made the transfer, or that Montgomery might have initiated this transfer himself. O'Connor's transfer to India marked an end to his combat career."
COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC Stephen C. Maj William W. "Bill" Price Capt Seid Waddell Capt Tom Brown SGM David W. Carr LOM, DMSM MP SGT 1stSgt Eugene Harless MSG Brad Sand SFC William Farrell SSgt Robert Marx TSgt Joe C. SGT John " Mac " McConnell SP5 Mark Kuzinski SGT Forrest Stewart SrA Christopher Wright SGT Robert George SPC (Join to see) Kim Bolen RN CCM ACM PO2 Ed C.

King Leonidas or any Spartan general should be on that list.