French Soldiers View on US Troops in Afganistan

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
61

@usmccds423
you don’t understand what “green” means in this context. (there’s not really much you seem to understand)
The Soviet had experience in defensive and offensive operations of massive scale, all the while experiencing huge losses while marching on.

Meanwhile the US were better in strategic bombings and naval stuff.

All the evidence (vietnam, middle east…) we have from the last century reminds us that US forces can’t take these kinds of losses- but the real tragedy is that some of you kid themselves when confronted with propaganda.

Your childish argument is “we would beat them!” which is no real argument.
Speaking about the durability, you imply that the US would somehow magically be able to take 10x the losses, when history tells us they wouldn’t.

@DoubleDuce
While american aid to russia was substantial, it’s impact is regularly debated.
But it has no impact on the discussion, as you, too, probably see.

Regarding your argument about surrendering:
That has rarely worked.
Also, propaganda and duty triumped rational action.
Soviet soldiers would be made to think the US wants to crucify them.
Germans in the desert fought Brits to the last bullet, knowing fully well that honourable surrender was an option.
North Koreans today believe americans want to invade.

@2busy
yes, Stalin lied all the time. (lol really?)
He was an ass and got a lot of free shit from you guys.

62

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
@usmccds423
you don’t understand what “green” means in this context. (there’s not really much you seem to understand) [/quote]

Sure I do and go fuck yourself.

[quote]
The Soviet had experience in defensive and offensive operations of massive scale, all the while experiencing huge losses while marching on.

Meanwhile the US were better in strategic bombings and naval stuff. [/quote]

And Naval stuff, lol. How exactly do you think we took places like Okinawa and Belleau Wood?

The U.S. is better. You could of just stopped there.

[quote]
All the evidence (vietnam, middle east…) we have from the last century reminds us that US forces can’t take these kinds of losses- but the real tragedy is that some of you kid themselves when confronted with propaganda. [/quote]

Completely different situations. Propaganda… Look in the mirror boss.

History does not tell us that. Your argument “Russia would just march in and the U.S. would tuck tail and run” isn’t childish? We just got finished winning the Pacific and defeating the Nazi, but we’re just gonna tuck tail and run. Sure.

63

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

The Russians could have absolutely stomped the rest of the allies as the armies stood at the end of the war. [/quote]

Possibly you are correct. Then why did they not do so?

64

[quote]Gkhan wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

The Russians could have absolutely stomped the rest of the allies as the armies stood at the end of the war. [/quote]

Possibly you are correct. Then why did they not do so?[/quote]

As mentioned numerous times, the A-bomb.

65

It was more than just the A bomb although that was a big factor no doubt.

We would have handily contained the Soviets had they expanded west. We had two major air forces at our disposal with plenty of long range bombers. We also have factories that couldn’t be touched by Soviet bombs. All we needed to do was to keep hammering their supply lines and their factories.

Let’s also not forget that we had an entire Pacific Fleet at our disposal which was freed up from fighting the Japanese.

We wouldn’t need to push the Soviets back into Russia, just keep them from advancing more into Germany.

james

66

atypical,
it’s rather doubtful such a campaign would’ve lasted very long, so bombings would have little impact (as they had on the war).
Bear in mind the soviets were already IN Germany pillaging and raping like …well, like 1945.

US forces dealt only with a small fraction of german forces in E.
They consistently fought with much more strength and material versus an exhausted enemy.
Soviets spend years perfecting their Deep Battle Doctrin against the other best army while the US started to perfect their strategy of fighting weaker foes.
Flag Football vs NFL
Compare the bafoonery of Market Garden, which is time and again displayed as some epic battles with the vile meatgrinder Bagration, which took place roughly at the same time.
Again: a few thousand dead vs hundreds of thousands.

I know some of you guys never had to question the stuff they teach you in school, but did you honestly know that India has more men fighting the Japanese then the US? That Canada or New Zealand lost way more men compared to their population?

No doubt, the US is militarily the strongest heavyweight on the planet who benches a ton and has a beautiful chest with sculpted abs.
But his chin is made of sparkly china and he’s never been even properly hit.
And his possy talks mad shit all day how great he is.

67

So the only thing the Soviet Union had for it was a massive population to draw from. That’s why they could sacrifice millions of soldiers and keep fighting. Plus they moved their munition factories out of reach from the Germans. Had the Japanese launched an invasion on the other side of the continent in Russia, it would have fallen like a house of cards. Plus the fact that had Hitler not been occupied in Czechoslovakia and invaded the Soviet Union earlier to avoid the harsh winter, things may have ended differently.

The United States had the A bomb…The Soviet Union had the winter. The winter would not have been as harsh in Western Europe.

68

[quote] Schwarzfahrer wrote:
No doubt, the US is militarily the strongest heavyweight on the planet who benches a ton and has a beautiful chest with sculpted abs.
But his chin is made of sparkly china and he’s never been even properly hit.
And his possy talks mad shit all day how great he is.[/quote]

We were hoping the German’s could last a round or two, but they turned out to be all talk. Speaking of all talk, the Russians collapsed before even making it to a fight. Cold war more like hot air. How’d the Super elite talkers do in Afghanistan?

69

Nice how the Russians kicked the crap out of a small country like Georgia. How many troops did they lose there? Does that make them somehow weak now cause they didn’t loose any troops?

70

And if the A bomb stopped the Russians from attacking Western Europe, why didn’t they finish the job once they acquired the bomb? The Soviets actually detonated the biggest nuclear devise in history…but that didn’t give them the balls to march on Western Europe…why? I mean, what the hell, these are people who are so tough they don’t care how many losses they take, right?

71

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
but did you honestly know that India has more men fighting the Japanese then the US? That Canada or New Zealand lost way more men compared to their population?
[/quote]

But who got the job done? Who cleared the Pacific of the Japanese? Was it the Canadians, or the New Zealanders? I think not. It doesn’t matter who lost more soldiers, it matters who ultimately won.

72

Gkhan, its not the population numbers but how you can squander them with impunity.
A democracy like the US can’t throw away lives if they can help it.
Hitler, Stalin and the others could squash millions of lives.

The japanese coming from behind may have been something, but I never read any historian crunching the numbers, so no idea here.
Please post if you got something

The soviet army '45 =/ today’s russian army.
Just like the Wehrmacht =/ today’s Bundeswehr.
Putin is also not able to draw much blood without destabilizing his reign.
If the US clashed today with russian forces in a prolonged, conventional, non-nuclear campaign (pure fantasy of course), the US would crush 'em under most scenarios.

They did, they pretty much immedietly started after '49 (their first test) with Korea.
Because the bomb is a game changer and conventional war is suicide, the russians and the US started proxy wars.
The world started to divide into two spheres.

And actually, we came multiple times really close to experience a nuclear exchange or semi-exchanges.

Russia really wanted Germany. A lot of shit went down till the 80s. Plans were made to blitz with a legion of tanks, so fast that a small nuke exchange wouldn’t matter much. Their own troops (mostly germans and poles) were expected to die of radiation.
The T-72 was specially designed to fulfill that role. Radiation, nota bene, from their own bombs.

It’s a huge, convoluted topic, for instance, there was a great polish spy named Kuklinski who smuggled the plans out and exposed not only the readiness to sacrifice their own troops under false pretext of a western attack, but also strategic details and achilles heels like the relatively light armored turrets of the T-72.

Maybe it was Kuklinski’s heroism, or maybe it was Arkhipov or Petrow, who saved western Europe, we’ll never know for sure.

73

[quote]Gkhan wrote:

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
but did you honestly know that India has more men fighting the Japanese then the US? That Canada or New Zealand lost way more men compared to their population?
[/quote]

But who got the job done? Who cleared the Pacific of the Japanese? Was it the Canadians, or the New Zealanders? I think not. It doesn’t matter who lost more soldiers, it matters who ultimately won.
[/quote]

Um… yeah, the Chinese helped a bit on that side of things.

Right, it doesn’t really matter how many they lost, what matters is how many they put down. Go look at the numbers of Axis troops the Russians defeated. The Russians won the war and it’s not even close.

74

[quote]Gkhan wrote:
So the only thing the Soviet Union had for it was a massive population to draw from. That’s why they could sacrifice millions of soldiers and keep fighting. Plus they moved their munition factories out of reach from the Germans. Had the Japanese launched an invasion on the other side of the continent in Russia, it would have fallen like a house of cards. Plus the fact that had Hitler not been occupied in Czechoslovakia and invaded the Soviet Union earlier to avoid the harsh winter, things may have ended differently.

The United States had the A bomb…The Soviet Union had the winter. The winter would not have been as harsh in Western Europe. [/quote]

Manpower, tanks, artillery, experience, ruthlessness, ability to take tremendous losses.

And it isn’t so much that there population was so large, it’s that their leaders were both willing and able to buy victory at tremendous casualty rates for the general population.

75

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
The fact that the Russians lost millions is part of my point. You don’t replace millions of trained experienced soldiers over night. It’s impossible. Further I can’t image after sustaining such huge losses Russian citizens would have the moral fortitude to attack the U.S. or the logistical capabilities to reach the U.S. without considerable effort.[/quote]

Well, that was part of what made Russia so freakishly powerful. They absorbed so much punishment but somehow found the manpower to replace them all. They did what the U.S. never bothered to do- turn their entire population towards the war effort.

And by the end of the war they had ~6 million veterans. The U.S. at the moment of V.E. Day couldn’t have defeated the Russians.

Could the U.S. have done the same thing the Russians did and turn everything towards the war? Sure, and we would have won because we’d overwhelm them with materiel and manpower.

But, if you just took purely the numbers and the prior history of the two armies by the end of the war in Europe, the Russians were far more formidable than the U.S./Brit.

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
Perhaps we are looking at this from two different perspectives. I don’t believe the U.S. would of crushed the Russian’s had we decided to invade their home land. I’m talking about defending against Russian aggression in Western Europe or in America.

Again, like I said earlier, had the Russians/Soviet Union had the capabilities to take the U.S. they would of. [/quote]

Ya, it’s different perspectives. Afaik the Russians never contemplated attacking the West. Don’t forget, they were always fighting a defensive war and Stalin really just wanted to see the West tear itself apart. He never wanted to fight any of the major powers.

The scenario at hand though would be if Churchill and Patton got their way and the U.S./Brit/allies decided to attack the Russians, since that’s the only plausible one.

76

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
So lemme get this straight- you are on the front lines getting hammered by artillery?
No? Why won’t you shut up then?

Or better: please stop masturbating over the virtual strength of a an army that gets consistently smashed by 3rd world countries.

With the soldiers being so beautiful and perfect, who do you blame for losing all these wars vs Somalis, Iraqis, Vietcong etc?
(Bonus Question: What do you think would have happened if Stalin would have been pissed off and decided to continue west after '45?)
[/quote]
Stalin was committed to global Communist rule, in the long run. If he had thought that he would have beaten the western allies in '45, he would have pushed on ahead and gone for it.