quote:

Originally posted by rightguide:
With all the statistics and descriptions of a modern Army squad organization and TOE, I can't imagine how some smelly, bearded Afgans just about over ran a outpost on Paki border where they had to of been on 50% alert all the time.???????? WTF???????

US troops: 4,000 some dead.
Enemy Combatants: how many hundreds of thousands dead?

No matter what technical advancements we have, we will always lose troops in war. The technical advancements merely stack the odds higher in our favor, so that we don't have hundreds of thousands dead as well.

quote:

Originally posted by joshrunkle35:

quote:

Originally posted by rightguide:
With all the statistics and descriptions of a modern Army squad organization and TOE, I can't imagine how some smelly, bearded Afgans just about over ran a outpost on Paki border where they had to of been on 50% alert all the time.???????? WTF???????

US troops: 4,000 some dead.
Enemy Combatants: how many hundreds of thousands dead?

No matter what technical advancements we have, we will always lose troops in war. The technical advancements merely stack the odds higher in our favor, so that we don't have hundreds of thousands dead as well.

I think a good case in point that illustrates this is the The Battle of Mogadishu. Although the enemy was poorly trained, and our soldiers were some of the most elite, they inflicted 18 KIA, and 80 some-odd WIA. The enemy KIA estimate is in the thousands.

Nighttime, close to medium range? Modern destroys them.
Daytime, medium to long range? Fair fight, I'd say. WWII has a small advantage in long-range power, but 2008 has the advantage in the M203 and sustained suppressing fire, as well as better optics.

The scenarios that REALLY entertain me are the thought of taking a brigade of M1A2s back to WWII, or ten men with M240s / M14s back to the Revolutionary war. I wonder if a Tiger or 88 could do anything other than track damage to an M1A2. I doubt it. And a good marksman with binoculars could decimate British officers in their lovely red uniforms from a hilltop 300m away with M14s. With a scope, 500+.

quote:

Originally posted by Klutched:
My two cents:

[In this next part, I am speaking in genalized terms, it is not true in all cases,but is the rule not the exception.]
The man. A different caliber of man. Tough,grew up in the depression. Physically tough, mentally tough, made due with less, more resourceful, could marh forever and lift heavy objects at will. Air Conditioning is something they had never felt or seen. Bonds of friendship formed that rivaled that of brotherhood. Loyal and trustworthy.

[In this next part, I am speaking in genalized terms, it is not true in all cases,but is the rule not the exception.]
The man: Grew up playing XBOX, surfing the web and not playing out of doors. Intelligent, but lazy and shiftless. Never been in a fist fight [except in the virtual world]. Grew up in air conditioned home. Can be traned to be somewhat loyal. Not very resourceful

Rule rather than the exception, eh? I think you have a rather romantic perception of the "old school" and skewed vision of the current crop. You are painting with waaaaay too broad a brush.

Modern beats WW2 in every case.....with the possible exception of HTH, as posted by Klutched.

Day-light engagements would still go to the modern boys thanks to better optics and integral suppressive firepower. Sure, the Garand has more range, but not every WW2 soldier was capable of making the most of that. Unless they are fighting in an environment where there is no cover/concealment whatsoever (Bonneville Salt Flats??) training, tactics and TOE win it for the current troops.

quote:

Originally posted by rightguide:
With all the statistics and descriptions of a modern Army squad organization and TOE, I can't imagine how some smelly, bearded Afgans just about over ran a outpost on Paki border where they had to of been on 50% alert all the time.???????? WTF???????

Ya know, its that kind of mentality that gets people killed. In world war two, some people thought the japanese as these small monkey like people that dont know how to fight. The Japanese turned out to be a tough and disciplined bunch. In Vietnam, we thought the VC were nothing but a bunch of peasant farmers who fought with old equipment. They were cunning, and tenacious fighters--oddly, the british thought the same of minutemen during the American Revolution. In Somalia in 93, some young Rangers thought Somali tribes and militia men were nothing but a bunch of druggie poor people with AKs--The Somalis turned out to be arguably the best street fighters the world has ever seen. They brought down two state of the art multi million dollar backhawks with weapons costing less than everyday items found in your local wallmart.

Now as far as our soldiers getting almost overrun. Think how exposed and easy it would be to ambush and destroy a foreign occupying force in your local hometown. Now take that same concept and apply it to some of the most rugged, unforgiving terrain on this planet.--This same terrain happens to be occupied by the same breed of "smelly bearded men" who call this place home, and whos been kicking the butt of invaders since Alexander the Great.

Theres a great quote on the door of the office of a cadre member of mine--a former SF guy. I think it rings true......

Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is
training with minimum food or water, in austere
conditions, day and night. The only thing clean on him
is his weapon. He doesn't worry about what workout to
do --- his rucksack weighs what it weighs, and he
runs until the enemy stops chasing him. The True
Believer doesn't care "how hard it is"; he knows he either
wins or he dies. He doesn't go home at 1700; he
is home. He knows only the Cause.
Now, who wants to quit?
- Unknown source, Fort Bragg, North Carolina

Not to mention that the World War II guys would all be in their eighties now...

quote:

Originally posted by AllenInWV:
Modern beats WW2 in every case.....with the possible exception of HTH, as posted by Klutched.

And exceptions such as Vietnam, Afghanistan, Somalia, Balkans, etc. where essentially WWII technology wielded by "True Believers" (in the post by drkhrt532) repeatedly stopped and often defeated more modern forces.

quote:

Originally posted by Solitar:
And exceptions such as Vietnam, Afghanistan, Somalia, Balkans, etc. where essentially WWII technology wielded by "True Believers" (in the post by drkhrt532) repeatedly stopped and often defeated more modern forces.

Not squad on squad.

quote:

Originally posted by PepeLep:

quote:

Originally posted by Solitar:
And exceptions such as Vietnam, Afghanistan, Somalia, Balkans, etc. where essentially WWII technology wielded by "True Believers" (in the post by drkhrt532) repeatedly stopped and often defeated more modern forces.

Not squad on squad.

Squad on squad is hot.....

quote:

Originally posted by Solitar:
And exceptions such as Vietnam, Afghanistan, Somalia, Balkans, etc. where essentially WWII technology wielded by "True Believers" (in the post by drkhrt532) repeatedly stopped and often defeated more modern forces.

Defeated. US forces take on superior numbers, and routinely inflicted 10 times or more causalities.

Somalia for example

US Forces Strength: 160 plus rescue force (because they didn't deploy with armor)
Militia Strength: 1,000-2,000

UN Casualties: 19 dead (including one Malaysian dead), 82 wounded and 1 POW
Militia: 1,000-1,500 dead, and 3,000-4,000 wounded.

And still US forces achieved it's objectives of capturing the lieutenants at the meeting.

Yeah the US Army got defeated.

quote:

Originally posted by PPGMD:

quote:

Originally posted by Solitar:
And exceptions such as Vietnam, Afghanistan, Somalia, Balkans, etc. where essentially WWII technology wielded by "True Believers" (in the post by drkhrt532) repeatedly stopped and often defeated more modern forces.

Defeated. US forces take on superior numbers, and routinely inflicted 10 times or more causalities.

Somalia for example

US Forces Strength: 160 plus rescue force (because they didn't deploy with armor)
Militia Strength: 1,000-2,000

UN Casualties: 19 dead (including one Malaysian dead), 82 wounded and 1 POW
Militia: 1,000-1,500 dead, and 3,000-4,000 wounded.

And still US forces achieved it's objectives of capturing the lieutenants at the meeting.

Yeah the US Army got defeated.

+1 on this observation. This goes to show, we should not be fighting wars where life is cheap.

quote:

Originally posted by Solitar:

quote:

Originally posted by AllenInWV:
Modern beats WW2 in every case.....with the possible exception of HTH, as posted by Klutched.

And exceptions such as Vietnam, Afghanistan, Somalia, Balkans, etc. where essentially WWII technology wielded by "True Believers" (in the post by drkhrt532) repeatedly stopped and often defeated more modern forces.

The question at hand, Mr. Reading Comprehension, is WW2 US squad (not Viet Cong, Somalis or anyone else) versus modern US squad.

Fight the tide, ignore the thread drift. LOL

Depending on the variables you want to include, conceivably cavemen could whip up on a modern unit.

Not so much not fight there, but get with the program. Don't try to be surgical and minimize casualites, if the locals don't care how many they cause. And don't fight wars to help the locals. If we need to fight a war to protect our own interests then FIGHT a war. It's these stupid nation building police actions that get us screwed.

quote:

Originally posted by Whiskey_Sauer:

+1 on this observation. This goes to show, we should not be fighting wars where life is cheap.

quote:

Originally posted by AllenInWV:
Depending on the variables you want to include, conceivably cavemen could whip up on a modern unit.

Especially an ambush of a modern squad by 20,000 cavemen. You can only carry so much ammo.

quote:

Originally posted by joshrunkle35:

quote:

Originally posted by rightguide:
With all the statistics and descriptions of a modern Army squad organization and TOE, I can't imagine how some smelly, bearded Afgans just about over ran a outpost on Paki border where they had to of been on 50% alert all the time.???????? WTF???????

US troops: 4,000 some dead.
Enemy Combatants: how many hundreds of thousands dead?

No matter what technical advancements we have, we will always lose troops in war. The technical advancements merely stack the odds higher in our favor, so that we don't have hundreds of thousands dead as well.

Remember though that medical care has advacned drastically since those times. That is a huge reason for lower casualties. The medical care has improved largely because of the many wars the US has involved itself in.

Before you underestimate the Afghans and Taliban, remember that tehy defeated the Soviets. That was a very modern and advanced army.

quote:

Originally posted by Tecumseh:
Before you underestimate the Afghans and Taliban, remember that tehy defeated the Soviets. That was a very modern and advanced army.

The Afghans defeated the Soviets because the US, through the CIA, was providing massive amounts of arms and training. They were loosing the war until the US got involved.

As far as wounded being compounded, the amount of US wounded is far less then the estimated amount of insurgent dead (to prevent the US from getting accurate numbers they take their dead and wounded with them, we estimate numbers by blood pools). The last insurgent casualty number I heard was 75,000. Of course this doesn't count ones that don't bleed out enough at the combat area.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: PPGMD,

quote:

Originally posted by PPGMD:

quote:

Originally posted by Tecumseh:
Before you underestimate the Afghans and Taliban, remember that tehy defeated the Soviets. That was a very modern and advanced army.

The Afghans defeated the Soviets because the US, through the CIA, was providing massive amounts of arms and training. They were loosing the war until the US got involved.

A very realistic account of this is the movie Charlie Wilson's War. Although kinda hoaky, it is pretty close to actual events.

It's the man, not the machine. This comes directly from USMC vets with experience in Fallujah, Iraq.

If the WWII had much combat experience...I'm talking 40, 50, or more fights, and the modern guys did not, I'll bet on the WWII men. The vets understand the psychology of combat (even if they can't speak about it intelligently) and would crush the newbies.

quote:

Originally posted by crebralfix:
If the WWII had much combat experience...

It isn't all about experience. By that logic, a squad of bushwhackers from Civil War Missouri should be able to take the WW-II squad. They probably spent more days in combat and had more engagements. Alexander the Great's units should take them all. They spent something like nine years straight in regular combat.

Nearly all of the soldiers who hit the beaches and jumped from the planes on D-Day had zero days of combat experience. Nobody does until they get it. They beat the highly experienced Germans who met them. Most of the Germans had more days in combat when the Allies invaded than the Allies would have in 1945. Most Allied ground forces in both theaters never did get as much combat experience as most of the Germans and Japanese they fought.

Having superior weaponry makes a difference. It's not everything, but it is something. Heart, character, and experience matter. Don't get me wrong. Your equipment matters, too.

Otherwise, we'd all still fight with atlatls or rocks.

Let's change it up a bit. Let's even it out with giving both squads WWII weapons. No satellite communications, no night vision etc...
Me, I'll pick the WWII vets hands down!!!!