Political Crossfire Forums

[Aibolit]

I hear that destroying 1 Panther cost 8 T-34-76 or 14 Sherman:(...

[Wizard From Oz]

Quote: would be suspisious of any statistic that indicated the Americans loss more men than they killed.

I actually would be the reverse. The defender always has the advantage, and attacker accepts the risk. The Germans basically defended right across Europe - and where naturally very very good at it.

In the Pacific the Americans where able to limit casualties a lot better because of the control of the battle field, and incredible planning. Still at Iwo Jima the Americans went ashore with a 3:1 advantage, and suffered a casualty rate of about 1.5 : 1.0

[TNBiologist]

aznninjahitman wrote:
It's sickening, really, war. The human rationale, too - American civilians and media seem to publicize daily individual American deaths more than the commonplace Iraqi mass kidnapping or murders. Clearly a trivialization of the Iraqi lives lost, and eurocentrism/ethnocentrism. Then again, it's easy, because they're 'over there.'

It's not sickening that most Americans care more about an American soldiers death than a Iraqi's death. I'm glad that is the case. The day the populus cares more about the death of an enemy or the death of a foreign national is the day that the American military will start loosing engagements due to low moral. Humans will always care more about their own that someone different than them. Its not wrong and I woudl encourage it.

[melchizedek22]

When we were fighting the Iraq army ,our army knew how to win,but since
we weren't greated as liberators,our mission now seems to be to ride around waiting to get blown up by a roadside bomb!

[Spider]

melchizedek22 wrote: When we were fighting the Iraq army ,our army knew how to win,but since
we weren't greated as liberators,our mission now seems to be to ride around waiting to get blown up by a roadside bomb!

I think that the coalition forces have demonstrated very effectivly just how good they are at quickly and efficiently fighting and defeating third world nations. What they suck at, and what most militaries usually have s*cked at in a historical context, is occupation.

Total and complete military domination is a go. Its been established. Occupation and "nation building", and expecting the troops to play police officer...doesn't seem to work. So. A lesson to remember in the future: Flatten whatever seems dangerous from afar and then leave. Civilian casualites might even be lower in the long run this way.

[zMtLlC]

Bobby Chicken wrote: zMtLlC wrote: While I believe that there were an overabundance of American troops in World War II and the ratio of Americans killed to Germans killed was most likely high

I would be suspisious of any statistic that indicated the Americans loss more men than they killed. Total German losses were 5.5 million, U.S. loses 450,000, but mostly in the Pacific. We have no way of knowing how many Germans the US. Killed, by I suspect it was more than 4 or 5 percent of total men killed by the allies. As a general rule, I wouldn't accuse any nation of poor tactics when they win a war and emerge as the world's most powerful nation. The U.S. fused large numbers, hight moral, and economic power and I believe it's general accepted that the killed more men than they lost (especially if we factor in the jolly old fat man and that scrawny little boy).

You have to take into account that Germany was also fighting on multiple fronts and was in the war much longer than the US was.

From my understanding, poor tactics isn't the accusation; it's that the tactics were not considerate to human life.

Let me remind you that just because it's "generally accepted" doesn't mean it's true.

[zMtLlC]

melchizedek22 wrote: When we were fighting the Iraq army ,our army knew how to win,but since
we weren't greated as liberators,our mission now seems to be to ride around waiting to get blown up by a roadside bomb!

Of course it's going to be harder to occupy a nation than to take over it, that's common sense. Claiming that the US Army was not greeted as liberators is very arguable, do you have any sources for that?

[DSwain]

aznninjahitman wrote: Okay, mistake on my part then. :) Thanks.

I've heard about those... debilitating... mental problems that begin occuring after substantial casualties in a unit. Hm...

Personally, I highly doubt the US military sees any of its personnel as cannon fodder. It would rather have massive collateral damage and civilian deaths, or have allied soldiers die, than have its own die. That, or military 'contractors.' The problem is weighing the PR; after all, if the job is too dangerous, people won't join up in droves. If the military has a tainted reputation, though, same deal.

That's why they're training Iraqis to fight and trying to get them "ready." No one's ever ready for combat, but you can train them and equip them and they'll have a better chance, and if the men dying are enemies and allies/auxiliaries, it's a good deal for you. What are a few rifles and helmets and uniforms given away, as opposed to several soldiers' lives lost and generating protests and reinforcing negative news stories about IED's?

It's sickening, really, war. The human rationale, too - American civilians and media seem to publicize daily individual American deaths more than the commonplace Iraqi mass kidnapping or murders. Clearly a trivialization of the Iraqi lives lost, and eurocentrism/ethnocentrism. Then again, it's easy, because they're 'over there.'

This is a forum for historical events - you've started a thread, got the interest of the anoraks and the grognards, and then you've turned it to another Iraq thread. Politics and General and News are filled with Iraq stuff - your points on Iraq might be better housed over there.

[aznninjahitman]

TNBiologist wrote: aznninjahitman wrote:
It's sickening, really, war. The human rationale, too - American civilians and media seem to publicize daily individual American deaths more than the commonplace Iraqi mass kidnapping or murders. Clearly a trivialization of the Iraqi lives lost, and eurocentrism/ethnocentrism. Then again, it's easy, because they're 'over there.'

It's not sickening that most Americans care more about an American soldiers death than a Iraqi's death. I'm glad that is the case. The day the populus cares more about the death of an enemy or the death of a foreign national is the day that the American military will start loosing engagements due to low moral. Humans will always care more about their own that someone different than them. Its not wrong and I woudl encourage it.

Very true, this point of yours. My apologies: I didn't take enough time to think out all the permutations of what I said.

Also, in regards to the posts about occupation...

It really is common sense that in this modern era of warfare, executing and winning a war is the easy part. The hard part is administering the lands after, if you're annexing or occupying them. In this case, it's an occupation; partisans are a part of any occupation, but one like this where the war was won so quickly and potential enemies mostly managed to weather the storm and hide among the civilian populace is a fiasco. Long wars are bad, but in this day and age, short wars are bad too, if you're occupying.

It's like a twisted little conundrum.

[Wizard From Oz]

Quote: It really is common sense that in this modern era of warfare, executing and winning a war is the easy part. The hard part is administering the lands after, if you're annexing or occupying them. In this case, it's an occupation; partisans are a part of any occupation, but one like this where the war was won so quickly and potential enemies mostly managed to weather the storm and hide among the civilian populace is a fiasco. Long wars are bad, but in this day and age, short wars are bad too, if you're occupying.


Wars of occupation - especially when someone is trying to save another countries population has been fraught with disaster since time immerorial. Very few 'Regime chanhe invasions' have proved to be positive experiences

[superskippy]

I dont understand what is so astonishing especially in the example of the Shermans. Besides having less experianced tank crewman and tactics, they were very lightly armored and the only thing that let them be used as main battle tanks was their 75mm gun which against the heavier German Tiger and some Panther models were not very effective if not altogether useless.

[aznninjahitman]

MG1962 wrote: Quote: It really is common sense that in this modern era of warfare, executing and winning a war is the easy part. The hard part is administering the lands after, if you're annexing or occupying them. In this case, it's an occupation; partisans are a part of any occupation, but one like this where the war was won so quickly and potential enemies mostly managed to weather the storm and hide among the civilian populace is a fiasco. Long wars are bad, but in this day and age, short wars are bad too, if you're occupying.


Wars of occupation - especially when someone is trying to save another countries population has been fraught with disaster since time immerorial. Very few 'Regime chanhe invasions' have proved to be positive experiences

Ah, thanks for quoting the glaringly obvious. But it's particularly so in these days, though there are precedents. Some areas are worse, when it comes to rebellion; Judaea, Galatia, Illyria, and Iberia were several particularly rebellious regions in the ancient world.

And change the spelling on 'Regime chanhe' to 'regime change'. You don't need to capitalize the 'R' in 'regime'.

And back to the main topic; in the World Wars, the basic tactics for all sides seemed to be based on air superiority (aka command of the skies) and wave attacks. So naturally, these were costly. The main differences between the sides were the heaviness of their weapons, the portability of heavier weapons and the degree of mechanization of infantry, the available forces and different characteristics of the forces, and the psychological factors, among others - tactics seem to have sayed fairly simple (simple is good, in warfare). Not to say there weren't battles won by maneuver, far from it! It's just that with battle lines less rigid than, say, the Napoleonic Wars or even World War II, battles were more fluid and soldiers tended to fight in smaller groups rather than large formations. Large attacks were simply made by many loosely coordinated smaller groups, for the most part, if I remember correctly (someone will probably shoot this conjecture down).

I don't know much about the individual differences between a Sherman and a typical Panzer tank, or the crewmen who kept them in battle. If I remember correctly, though, the Panzer corps were seen and trained as an elite force, so likely, this would have brought the disparity in tank battle casualties. Conjecturally, better tactics on the Germans' side, as well as higher quality in general, were the root of this difference (they knew the land better, had the morale boost of being 'elite,' and were better-armored).

[californian conservative]

Spider wrote: Military planning on a full scale war does involve at least some "Canon Fodder" mentality. When you have two opposing forces...a rule of thumb that has come through historically time and again is that whoever gets there firstest with the mostest wins. Operation Overlord was planned from day one under the assumption that massive casualties would need to be taken. It was going to be bloody, they knew that in order for the following waves to be effective, earlier ones would suffer extremely high casuality rates, and they knew ultimately if the overall invasion was to succeed a lot of guys were going to be dying. Theres actually a bit of pretty complex statistics derived math that deals specifically with projecting troop fatalities...in a full scale war, its all about numbers.

I'm borrowing a link from MG1962 concerning the cancelled invasion of Japan in the event of the failure of the nuclear attacks. Its interesting reading, and it raises the eyebrows as far as the sheer amount of "cannon fodder" they were preparing to accept.

http://www.waszak.com/japanww2.htm

holy crap that article is one of the most interesting articles i've read in years

[aznninjahitman]

melchizedek22 wrote: When we were fighting the Iraq army ,our army knew how to win,but since
we weren't greated as liberators,our mission now seems to be to ride around waiting to get blown up by a roadside bomb!

Would you like to rethink that...? It's not particularly well-thought out as an opinion, and I can poke holes in it without much effort...

For one, depending on your take, the Allied armies were greeted as liberators by jubilant throngs in the majority of places. Only the people with everything to lose and little to nothing to gain (namely the rich and especially the Baaths and Sunnis) had any true motivation to resist; them and the religiously driven (often disaffected young men).

Also, there wasn't much of a fight against the Iraqi army. They were simply wiped out by heavy ordnance, mostly, or they surrendered as quickly as possible. So it is true the American army knew how to fight organized, uniformed resistance, but the true battle was already going on back then in the form of the Fedayeen and other irregular or paramilitary forces; these forces operated then in tactical ambushes and in cutting supply lines.

Now, the American and Allied contingents are overseeing a rather chaotic occupation. Administering a conquered nation (even though ideologically, we're 'liberating' them) is always difficult in the best of times. The situation the American military faces is little different from the Alexandrian occupation of the Bactrian kingdoms and Afghan/Pashtun/Scythian tribal lands. It could be even worse - there are large resistance movements, but they're not unified...