i think to discount nobunaga's genius and not to consider him an excellent general is a false notion. when nobunaga came to power, the oda controlled only a part of a province, and there were more established clans led by famed daimyo that held much more land than he did, like the shimazu, mori, takeda, and uesugi and yet the oda lands eclipsed the others over nobunaga's lifetime. how was this possible if not for nobunaga's military skill?

the oda did not have the huge base army of samurai that those other major clans had developed over time, so nobunaga decided to neutralized their advantage in his own special way. he based his own forces on peasent conscripts and to equalized the years of training a professional samurai based force would present, he armed his men with long spears and guns.

as for his tactical skill, much has been said about okehezama so i will not repeat it, so let us move on to nagashino. nobunaga brought the stockade with him, and set up behind the stream to impede the cavalry charge. when his first navy was defeated by blockade runners at osaka, he built a new one based around iron plated hulled ships that proved impossible to defeat.

but it is in the strategic arena that nobunaga shines, because the warfare he was involved in was coalition warfare, akin to what frederick the great and napoleon faced. he was fighting a multi front war for over 3 decades, usually against 4 or 5 opponents. on multiple occasions, nobunaga would be within inches of totally obliterating an enemy, and to his far rear another enemy would breakthrough one of his vassal's fronts, or a vassal would defect, or an ally would switch sides, forcing him to withdraw and deal with the new threat. and just when he was strectched taut and could not spare any more soldiers, there would be another religious uprising in a corner of his domain that would just throw the whole outcome up in the air again.

meanwhile, if he did manage to eliminate one of his opponents, they would almost automatically be replaced by a stronger, better led clan with more troops. the foolish imagawa were replaced by the asai/asakura which were replaced by the mori, takeda, uesugi. so even as he expanded, his enemies got correspondingly tougher. from my perspective, the oda domain was always on the verge of collapse, and it was through sheer will power that he held it together.