French Soldiers View on US Troops in Afganistan

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
122

[quote]pushharder wrote:
One thing I’ve noticed in this What If exercise is the repeated employment of “Yeah, but Stalin was willing to sacrifice millions of soldiers…so therefore the USSR would’ve been unstoppable in late 1945.”

With that in mind let me respond with this famous quote from the guy who’d been tasked with defeating the Red Army at that juncture:

“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”

Gen. George Patton[/quote]

I still wouldnâ??t want to fight a guy willing to rip off his own arm so he could beat you with it.

It isn’t that they win by dying, it’s that they remove your ability to win by killing. Patton is wrong in that quote about Russia. Making 1, 2, or millions of poor bastards on the other side die may very well not have won a fight with Russia.

123

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
One thing I’ve noticed in this What If exercise is the repeated employment of “Yeah, but Stalin was willing to sacrifice millions of soldiers…so therefore the USSR would’ve been unstoppable in late 1945.”

With that in mind let me respond with this famous quote from the guy who’d been tasked with defeating the Red Army at that juncture:

“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”

Gen. George Patton[/quote]

I still wouldnâ??t want to fight a guy willing to rip off his own arm so he could beat you with it.

It isn’t that they win by dying, it’s that they remove your ability to win by killing. Patton is wrong in that quote about Russia. Making 1, 2, or millions of poor bastards on the other side die may very well not have won a fight with Russia.
[/quote]

I understand what you’re saying, but I think you’re being a bit extreme, don’t you? If Russia had already sustained 8MM in loses (or whatever the number was) they can’t just keep sustaining those types of casualties. It’s not logistically possible.

124

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
One thing I’ve noticed in this What If exercise is the repeated employment of “Yeah, but Stalin was willing to sacrifice millions of soldiers…so therefore the USSR would’ve been unstoppable in late 1945.”

With that in mind let me respond with this famous quote from the guy who’d been tasked with defeating the Red Army at that juncture:

“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”

Gen. George Patton[/quote]

I still wouldn�¢??t want to fight a guy willing to rip off his own arm so he could beat you with it.

It isn’t that they win by dying, it’s that they remove your ability to win by killing. Patton is wrong in that quote about Russia. Making 1, 2, or millions of poor bastards on the other side die may very well not have won a fight with Russia.
[/quote]

I understand what you’re saying, but I think you’re being a bit extreme, don’t you? If Russia had already sustained 8MM in loses (or whatever the number was) they can’t just keep sustaining those types of casualties. It’s not logistically possible. [/quote]

8 million would just be military losses. And what they had already done doesn’t seem logistically possible either.

125

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
One thing I’ve noticed in this What If exercise is the repeated employment of “Yeah, but Stalin was willing to sacrifice millions of soldiers…so therefore the USSR would’ve been unstoppable in late 1945.”

With that in mind let me respond with this famous quote from the guy who’d been tasked with defeating the Red Army at that juncture:

“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”

Gen. George Patton[/quote]

I still wouldn�?�¢??t want to fight a guy willing to rip off his own arm so he could beat you with it.

It isn’t that they win by dying, it’s that they remove your ability to win by killing. Patton is wrong in that quote about Russia. Making 1, 2, or millions of poor bastards on the other side die may very well not have won a fight with Russia.
[/quote]

I understand what you’re saying, but I think you’re being a bit extreme, don’t you? If Russia had already sustained 8MM in loses (or whatever the number was) they can’t just keep sustaining those types of casualties. It’s not logistically possible. [/quote]

8 million would just be military losses. And what they had already done doesn’t seem logistically possible either.[/quote]

So wouldn’t another couple million in casualties seem pretty unrealistic?

126

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
One thing I’ve noticed in this What If exercise is the repeated employment of “Yeah, but Stalin was willing to sacrifice millions of soldiers…so therefore the USSR would’ve been unstoppable in late 1945.”

With that in mind let me respond with this famous quote from the guy who’d been tasked with defeating the Red Army at that juncture:

“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”

Gen. George Patton[/quote]

I still wouldn�??�?�¢??t want to fight a guy willing to rip off his own arm so he could beat you with it.

It isn’t that they win by dying, it’s that they remove your ability to win by killing. Patton is wrong in that quote about Russia. Making 1, 2, or millions of poor bastards on the other side die may very well not have won a fight with Russia.
[/quote]

I understand what you’re saying, but I think you’re being a bit extreme, don’t you? If Russia had already sustained 8MM in loses (or whatever the number was) they can’t just keep sustaining those types of casualties. It’s not logistically possible. [/quote]

8 million would just be military losses. And what they had already done doesn’t seem logistically possible either.[/quote]

So wouldn’t another couple million in casualties seem pretty unrealistic? [/quote]

Yes, as unrealistic and the 4th set of a couple of million they’d already taken.

127

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]pushharder wrote:
One thing I’ve noticed in this What If exercise is the repeated employment of “Yeah, but Stalin was willing to sacrifice millions of soldiers…so therefore the USSR would’ve been unstoppable in late 1945.”

With that in mind let me respond with this famous quote from the guy who’d been tasked with defeating the Red Army at that juncture:

“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.”

Gen. George Patton[/quote]

I still wouldn�??�??�?�¢??t want to fight a guy willing to rip off his own arm so he could beat you with it.

It isn’t that they win by dying, it’s that they remove your ability to win by killing. Patton is wrong in that quote about Russia. Making 1, 2, or millions of poor bastards on the other side die may very well not have won a fight with Russia.
[/quote]

I understand what you’re saying, but I think you’re being a bit extreme, don’t you? If Russia had already sustained 8MM in loses (or whatever the number was) they can’t just keep sustaining those types of casualties. It’s not logistically possible. [/quote]

8 million would just be military losses. And what they had already done doesn’t seem logistically possible either.[/quote]

So wouldn’t another couple million in casualties seem pretty unrealistic? [/quote]

Yes, as unrealistic and the 4th set of a couple of million they’d already taken.[/quote]

You can only go to the well so many times before it dries up.

128

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]UtahLama wrote:

I get what you are saying, but that was in defense of the homeland. Do you think they would have the same desire to sacrifice in say, southern France?[/quote]

Really, at this point, I’m just trying to give people some perspective. The whole “America, Fuck yeah, we would have handed Stalin his ass in an instant because we dominated that war” view is revisionist and misguided.

Think about this, doing some math, to equal the total number of Russian casualties in the war, the US would have to have a D-day, every single day, for more than 10 straight years… That is more than 3600 d-days.

You also have to remember the US and Britton were fighting over foreign soil too after all.
[/quote]

What was the ratio of German losses to those huge Russian losses? Some places have it as high as 1:4 or 5 with an almost 2:1 fighting strength force meaning unless I mess up that the Germans were at about 8:1 between '41 and '44. (A lot of these numbers were hastily gathered and some rounded for ease to prove a point, accuracy here is highly questionable although most stuff I dug up had it in the ballpark)

With that said, if Americans were able to have an equivalent or greater level of success against the Russians, and nothing suggests we wouldn’t as we performed much better against the Germans, why would we not be able to win (without suffering the huge losses that have been for some reason assumed would be a foregone conclusion). As push quoted Patton but I feel it needs repeating as it doesn’t seem to have set in:

“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other guy die for his.”

And for the record, the superior soldiers don’t always win, IE the Germans were far superior soldiers to the Russians, they just didn’t have the numbers.

129

[quote]jbpick86 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]UtahLama wrote:

I get what you are saying, but that was in defense of the homeland. Do you think they would have the same desire to sacrifice in say, southern France?[/quote]

Really, at this point, I’m just trying to give people some perspective. The whole “America, Fuck yeah, we would have handed Stalin his ass in an instant because we dominated that war” view is revisionist and misguided.

Think about this, doing some math, to equal the total number of Russian casualties in the war, the US would have to have a D-day, every single day, for more than 10 straight years… That is more than 3600 d-days.

You also have to remember the US and Britton were fighting over foreign soil too after all.
[/quote]

What was the ratio of German losses to those huge Russian losses? Some places have it as high as 1:4 or 5 with an almost 2:1 fighting strength force meaning unless I mess up that the Germans were at about 8:1 between '41 and '44. (A lot of these numbers were hastily gathered and some rounded for ease to prove a point, accuracy here is highly questionable although most stuff I dug up had it in the ballpark)

With that said, if Americans were able to have an equivalent or greater level of success against the Russians, and nothing suggests we wouldn’t as we performed much better against the Germans, why would we not be able to win (without suffering the huge losses that have been for some reason assumed would be a foregone conclusion). As push quoted Patton but I feel it needs repeating as it doesn’t seem to have set in:

“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other guy die for his.”

And for the record, the superior soldiers don’t always win, IE the Germans were far superior soldiers to the Russians, they just didn’t have the numbers.
[/quote]

I would just disagree with your assessment. I don’t think we did much better against the Germans. The Russians were even outnumbered early on. We on the other hand always had massive advantages in personnel, supplies and everything else over the Germans. We never really fought against a more even force.

And yes, there would have necessarily been drastically more casualties fighting a larger more experienced Russian Army. Even if we assume a 2:1 kill advantage and only needing to kill 2 million Russians, that would be 1 million dead US soldiers, 10 times what weâ??d suffered in the war.

130

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]jbpick86 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]UtahLama wrote:

I get what you are saying, but that was in defense of the homeland. Do you think they would have the same desire to sacrifice in say, southern France?[/quote]

Really, at this point, I’m just trying to give people some perspective. The whole “America, Fuck yeah, we would have handed Stalin his ass in an instant because we dominated that war” view is revisionist and misguided.

Think about this, doing some math, to equal the total number of Russian casualties in the war, the US would have to have a D-day, every single day, for more than 10 straight years… That is more than 3600 d-days.

You also have to remember the US and Britton were fighting over foreign soil too after all.
[/quote]

What was the ratio of German losses to those huge Russian losses? Some places have it as high as 1:4 or 5 with an almost 2:1 fighting strength force meaning unless I mess up that the Germans were at about 8:1 between '41 and '44. (A lot of these numbers were hastily gathered and some rounded for ease to prove a point, accuracy here is highly questionable although most stuff I dug up had it in the ballpark)

With that said, if Americans were able to have an equivalent or greater level of success against the Russians, and nothing suggests we wouldn’t as we performed much better against the Germans, why would we not be able to win (without suffering the huge losses that have been for some reason assumed would be a foregone conclusion). As push quoted Patton but I feel it needs repeating as it doesn’t seem to have set in:

“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other guy die for his.”

And for the record, the superior soldiers don’t always win, IE the Germans were far superior soldiers to the Russians, they just didn’t have the numbers.
[/quote]

I would just disagree with your assessment. I don’t think we did much better against the Germans. The Russians were even outnumbered early on. We on the other hand always had massive advantages in personnel, supplies and everything else over the Germans. We never really fought against a more even force.

And yes, there would have necessarily been drastically more casualties fighting a larger more experienced Russian Army. Even if we assume a 2:1 kill advantage and only needing to kill 2 million Russians, that would be 1 million dead US soldiers, 10 times what weâ??d suffered in the war.
[/quote]

That is assuming that we didn’t just maintain a defensive position with infantry and tanks while bombing the shit out of their infantry. A never stop pushing and lets overwhelm them with numbers tactic that the Russians seemed fond of is not that difficult to inflict huge kill ratios upon when technology is on your side especially.

131

[quote]jbpick86 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]jbpick86 wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

[quote]UtahLama wrote:

I get what you are saying, but that was in defense of the homeland. Do you think they would have the same desire to sacrifice in say, southern France?[/quote]

Really, at this point, I’m just trying to give people some perspective. The whole “America, Fuck yeah, we would have handed Stalin his ass in an instant because we dominated that war” view is revisionist and misguided.

Think about this, doing some math, to equal the total number of Russian casualties in the war, the US would have to have a D-day, every single day, for more than 10 straight years… That is more than 3600 d-days.

You also have to remember the US and Britton were fighting over foreign soil too after all.
[/quote]

What was the ratio of German losses to those huge Russian losses? Some places have it as high as 1:4 or 5 with an almost 2:1 fighting strength force meaning unless I mess up that the Germans were at about 8:1 between '41 and '44. (A lot of these numbers were hastily gathered and some rounded for ease to prove a point, accuracy here is highly questionable although most stuff I dug up had it in the ballpark)

With that said, if Americans were able to have an equivalent or greater level of success against the Russians, and nothing suggests we wouldn’t as we performed much better against the Germans, why would we not be able to win (without suffering the huge losses that have been for some reason assumed would be a foregone conclusion). As push quoted Patton but I feel it needs repeating as it doesn’t seem to have set in:

“The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other guy die for his.”

And for the record, the superior soldiers don’t always win, IE the Germans were far superior soldiers to the Russians, they just didn’t have the numbers.
[/quote]

I would just disagree with your assessment. I don’t think we did much better against the Germans. The Russians were even outnumbered early on. We on the other hand always had massive advantages in personnel, supplies and everything else over the Germans. We never really fought against a more even force.

And yes, there would have necessarily been drastically more casualties fighting a larger more experienced Russian Army. Even if we assume a 2:1 kill advantage and only needing to kill 2 million Russians, that would be 1 million dead US soldiers, 10 times what we�¢??d suffered in the war.
[/quote]

That is assuming that we didn’t just maintain a defensive position with infantry and tanks while bombing the shit out of their infantry. A never stop pushing and lets overwhelm them with numbers tactic that the Russians seemed fond of is not that difficult to inflict huge kill ratios upon when technology is on your side especially. [/quote]

And those kill ratios often reverse if they break your lines.

132

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
I understand what you’re saying, but I think you’re being a bit extreme, don’t you? If Russia had already sustained 8MM in loses (or whatever the number was) they can’t just keep sustaining those types of casualties. It’s not logistically possible. [/quote]

See… The Germans thought the same thing, but see what happened to them in the end…

Point is- Russia in WW2 literally broke everyone’s expectations. Applying conventional logic to them at that point in time is dangerous for that simple reason.

133

[quote]magick wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
I understand what you’re saying, but I think you’re being a bit extreme, don’t you? If Russia had already sustained 8MM in loses (or whatever the number was) they can’t just keep sustaining those types of casualties. It’s not logistically possible. [/quote]

See… The Germans thought the same thing, but see what happened to them in the end…

Point is- Russia in WW2 literally broke everyone’s expectations. Applying conventional logic to them at that point in time is dangerous for that simple reason.[/quote]

Yes, but the German’s made a crucial error by invading Russia during the winter months and was fighting a multi front war.

134

[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
That is assuming that we didn’t just maintain a defensive position with infantry and tanks while bombing the shit out of their infantry. A never stop pushing and lets overwhelm them with numbers tactic that the Russians seemed fond of is not that difficult to inflict huge kill ratios upon when technology is on your side especially. [/quote]

Technology wasn’t on our side. The Russians at the very least had better tanks, and their aircraft was (IIRC) on par with ours.

136

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
Yes, but the German’s made a crucial error by invading Russia during the winter months and was fighting a multi front war. [/quote]

Actually they invaded in early summer.

And they weren’t fighting a multi-front war when they initially invaded Russia. France was conquered and the Brits were getting their ass kicked in Africa. The 2nd front didn’t open until well after the Russians kicked Germany’s ass and were steam-rolling into German-controlled territory.

137

[quote]magick wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
Yes, but the German’s made a crucial error by invading Russia during the winter months and was fighting a multi front war. [/quote]

Actually they invaded in early summer.

And they weren’t fighting a multi-front war when they initially invaded Russia. France was conquered and the Brits were getting their ass kicked in Africa. The 2nd front didn’t open until well after the Russians kicked Germany’s ass and were steam-rolling into German-controlled territory.[/quote]

Interesting fact. Hitler planned on finishing Russia before winter set in. He was so hell bent on getting it done before winter, he refused to issue winter clothing to his troops until after many had already frozen to death.

138

[quote]magick wrote:

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:
Yes, but the German’s made a crucial error by invading Russia during the winter months and was fighting a multi front war. [/quote]

Actually they invaded in early summer.

And they weren’t fighting a multi-front war when they initially invaded Russia. France was conquered and the Brits were getting their ass kicked in Africa. The 2nd front didn’t open until well after the Russians kicked Germany’s ass and were steam-rolling into German-controlled territory.[/quote]

Okay, they didn’t invade in the winter, but they sustained considerable losses while being there during the winter. Ultimately the German’s were fighting a multi front war, which diverted their attention from rallying against Russia. I’m not saying they’d of won just that German attention couldn’t solely be on Russia.

139

[quote]pushharder wrote:

[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:

Edit: I have “The Rape of Nanking” checked out from my Library, but haven’t gotten to it yet.[/quote]

I’ve read it. It’ll blow you away.[/quote]

Ugh. I went ahead and moved it to the front of my list. I’m a little over halfway through and am full of a very odd combination of anger and nausea. Literally, I’m astounded by the inventiveness and creativity. I could not have invented, in the darkest recesses of my mind, cruelties approaching what actual happened to real people on an insane scale. I don’t even want to finish it but I feel like I aught to.

140

[quote]magick wrote:

[quote]jbpick86 wrote:
That is assuming that we didn’t just maintain a defensive position with infantry and tanks while bombing the shit out of their infantry. A never stop pushing and lets overwhelm them with numbers tactic that the Russians seemed fond of is not that difficult to inflict huge kill ratios upon when technology is on your side especially. [/quote]

Technology wasn’t on our side. The Russians at the very least had better tanks, and their aircraft was (IIRC) on par with ours.[/quote]

Different tanks, not necessarily better, and their aircraft was similar however our pilots were far more experienced at the time and we new how to exploit our air advantage much more than the Soviets did. Plus we had them outnumbered and were far outproducing them in both those areas.

I am still assuming that the objective of the conflict we are describing was to push the Russians back to their original lines and out of their newly occupied territory, not an occupation of Russia or an unseating of Stalin. In which case I believe the allies could have been highly successful and not sustained the losses that others here seem to think they would.