The ruler is long, the inch is short, Ridgway and MacArthur have their own advantages and disadvantages, the length is obvious, it is not easy to compare the two directly.
By the time MacArthur arrived on the Korean battlefield, he was already famous all over the world, and he was the veritable emperor of East Asia, not only Japan and South Korea wanted his United Nations forces to cover it, but Taiwan was actually the same. Therefore, he has a very high self-esteem, not only does he not put North Korea and China in his eyes, but he also does not put in the eyes of a bunch of offspring in the United States, whether it is Truman, Bradley or Collins, in his eyes are a sentence, you are still a doll, what do you know?
Moreover, at the beginning of the Korean War, the Korean People's Army swept down, the Rokk army collapsed, and seeing that the red flag was about to be planted all over the Korean Peninsula, MacArthur boldly implemented the Inchon landing plan. Although in the late stages of World War II, the US military had already begun to plan this method of warfare, and tried to use this method of warfare in China, landing from Guangzhou to Beiping on the one hand, and landing from Yantai on the other, cutting the Japanese army into two sections, but after all, it was not put into practice, and he really used it in Korea.
The Inchon landing was a very strategically bold plan, as it required an analysis of the strengths of both the enemy and the enemy, and it required careful planning to implement. He succeeded in one fell swoop, immediately turned the tide of war on the Korean Peninsula, turned the tide of the situation in South Korea, and immediately raised his prestige to a higher level, even more indispensable. Coupled with the fact that he did not pay attention to China at all at this time, believing that It was impossible for China to intervene with troops, he laid the groundwork for the disastrous defeat of the United Nations army in the next and second battles.
When Ridgway came to the Korean battlefield, he was the commander of the Eighth Army who succeeded Walker, because Walker died in a car accident, ridgway was temporarily arrested and sent to the Korean battlefield. Although he knew before he came that Truman, Bradley, collins and others were extremely dissatisfied with MacArthur and had the intention of changing horses, but when to change, who to change, it was not certain, Ridgway was not ready to take over, he wanted first to stabilize the situation, and to bring the scattered and demoralized Eighth Army out of the trough first.
As a result, as soon as Ridgway arrived in Korea, he caught up with the volunteer army to launch the third campaign, and before he could adjust the front and deployment, he had to retreat with the Eighth Army. However, compared with the previous Walker who did not dare to disobey MacArthur's orders, knowing that there was a great danger in advancing, and could only grind foreign workers and did not dare to explicitly refuse, Ridgway was still more decisive. The volunteers posed to attack Seoul, and Ridgway retreated all the way to the 37th Line.
It was also in the process of this first confrontation that Ridgway had a more intuitive impression of the volunteer army, and discovered the secret of the volunteer army's weekly offensive, and then formulated magnetic tactics, found that the volunteer offensive was exhausted, boldly judged the logistics of the volunteer army, and began to organize the United Nations counteroffensive, that is, the fourth campaign. In the first phase of the campaign, Ridgway carried forward the superiority of American firepower and caused relatively large casualties to the volunteer army, but in the second stage of the Hengcheng counterattack, he suffered another loss and was forced to stop the offensive.
The best reflection of Ridgway's talent as a well-known tactical expert in the US military is the fifth campaign. In the first three battles, especially in the first two battles, the volunteer army boldly interspersed, divided, and surrounded, making the US troops miserable for days, and as soon as they saw the volunteers cutting their own back roads, the US troops began to retreat. In the fifth campaign, Ridgway had the Americans in a reinforced battalion as a unit, interspersed through the gaps between the various units of the Volunteer Army, disrupting the Volunteers' front and causing the Volunteers to suffer almost complete losses of the 180th Division.
Therefore, the U.S. army reversed the decline and began to counterattack after the third campaign, which is generally regarded as a change brought about by Ridgway's takeover of the Eighth Army. However, objectively speaking, the first battle was that the volunteer army was unprepared to attack the enemy and took advantage of the paralysis of the US army; the second battle was a new offensive after the US army adjusted its front, the volunteer army was still in a relaxed posture, and MacArthur was still confused about the strength of the volunteer army and had no understanding.
By the time of the third campaign, MacArthur had begun to realize that his opponents were not simple and very powerful, so he would continue to demand more troops from the United States to Korea, otherwise the American army would not be able to win. As a 70-year-old veteran, MacArthur suffered losses in the first two battles because of his own paralysis and pride, but after the third campaign, he began to pay attention to his opponents, there will be changes, whether strategic or tactical, there will be adjustments, not necessarily until Ridgway comes to change.
By the end of the third campaign, there was a fierce quarrel between the North Korean side and the Chinese side, and Peng Zong resolutely refused to continue the large-scale pursuit, one of the main reasons was that he was worried that he would go too deep, the supply line was too long, and MacArthur would make another Inchon landing. But before MacArthur could plan another Inchon landing, he was dismissed and returned home. Ridgway succeeded MacArthur as Commander-in-Chief of the United Nations Forces, and although the fifth campaign was tactically successful, there were no more major moves in strategy. Especially after the volunteers abandoned the goal of annihilating the United States and two or three divisions of the ROK army in one campaign, Ridgway was powerless.
Therefore, on the whole, MacArthur was good at strategy, but did not pay enough attention to the specific tactical aspects, but it could not be said that his tactical aspects were shortcomings; Ridgway did discover the Weekly Offensive and put forward magnetic tactics, and the bold "division and long skills to control Yi" in the fifth campaign were very successful, but when the Volunteer Army changed its strategy and tactics, he did not put forward any clever ideas in strategy, until finally transferred to Europe, the front line on the Korean Peninsula was always relatively stable.