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Lots of talk about North Korea at the moment. But having been at peace for over 50 years, besides some skirmishes at the border, how effective can the military be? When all parts of the command system have no real fighting experience.
WWII serves a good example. Red Army cadre had no fighting experience due to pre-war purges and treason. You know what happened.
Also, look at Vietnam warfare. Not that Viet Kong was all that trained. Yeah, they had "advisors" but that's easy find and many will be eager to partake, when paid well or having interests.
So if you have DEDICATED and FEARLESS army ....... As in foot soldiers....
Lots of talk about North Korea at the moment. But having been at peace for over 50 years, besides some skirmishes at the border, how effective can the military be? When all parts of the command system have no real fighting experience.
Can the North Korean Army sweep over the peninsula, pushing South Korean and American forces into the sea? No.
Are North Korean generals, who advance more based upon their political reliability than their military talents, anywhere close in capability to their potential adversaries? No.
Can North Korean tech go toe-to-toe with South Korean and American tech? No.
But those aren't the relevant questions. Ultimately, the North Korea military is a deterrent force. Even if North Korean propaganda doesn't admit it, it exists based on a maxim along these lines:
SURE, YOU CAN DESTROY US, BUT IN OUR DEATH THROES WE CAN ASSUREDLY CAUSE SUCH DAMAGE - AND POTENTIALLY CAUSE EVEN MORE - THAT YOU WILL NOT DARE ATTACK US.
Can North Korean artillery and rockets rain destruction down upon Seoul, causing significant civilian casualties and major economic damage before the guns and launchers are destroyed? That answer is 'Yes'.
And does the mere chance - be it 50% or 25% or even 10% - that North Korea can successfully launch one or more nuclear devices at South Korea or Japan or Alaska or Hawaii (currently the only parts of the United States within known range of North Korea delivery systems) carry significant deterrent value? Resoundingly, 'Yes.
If the balloon goes up over the Korean peninsula, the outcome of the war is not in doubt. North Korea loses, completely. But that doesn't mean that it can't badly hurt its opponents in the process. And that fact carries considerable strategic usefulness for Pyongyang, and is an unpleasant reality that cannot be dismissed in Seoul and Washington and Tokyo.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ukrkoz
WWII serves a good example. Red Army cadre had no fighting experience due to pre-war purges and treason. You know what happened.
Yes, we do.
They got routed, and were saved only by a nearly-endless expanse of land and source of population that vastly exceeded that of its enemy upon which to draw - neither of which are remotely analogous to the situation of North Korea.
Lots of talk about North Korea at the moment. But having been at peace for over 50 years, besides some skirmishes at the border, how effective can the military be? When all parts of the command system have no real fighting experience.
Sure they can - the key is training, moral, logistics, and equipment.
But when you are talking North Korea military you have to face the reality of the disparity of equipment. That disparity is that one single US aircraft carrier fleet can destroy N. Korea militarily without breaking a sweat or even, for that matter, using nukes.
However, this is a big however...before that happens, which will be in days, North Korea has enough conventional artillery to pound Seoul and the DMZ with 30,000 US troops into smoking ruins - again, this is not nukes but conventional. They have A LOT of artillery, a ton of it - old fashioned/deadly. That would be in hours, maybe a day, before our military can mobilize to take them all out. North Korean ground infantry swarming over the border like during the Korean War? - not a factor as the DMZ is too well defended.
WWII serves a good example. Red Army cadre had no fighting experience due to pre-war purges and treason. You know what happened.
It does have to be taken into account that in the initial phases of the war the Red Army's performance was shambolic to say the least. Their invasion of Finland in 1939 was a complete farce, and when Germany launched Operation Barbarossa in 1941, the Red Army's initial response was was completely chaotic. There was complete panic, and nobody seemed to be in control of the situation. It took about a year before there was a true sense that the military command was developing clear ideas of how to deal with the Nazis.
I guess the best way to think of the Soviet Union in WWII is to think of a drowning person learning to swim. The seriousness of the situation forced the Red Army to adapt or die. In the end the Red Army became a well-drilled machine, an incredible contrast to the embarrassing excuse for an army that it had in 1940. Although even towards the end of the war it was a noticeably less efficient machine than most of the major armies involved in the conflict. The casualty rate was still extremely high, and ultimately it was sheer numbers that allowed them to eventually overwhelm a much more efficient Nazi war machine.
WWII serves a good example. Red Army cadre had no fighting experience due to pre-war purges and treason. You know what happened.
Also, look at Vietnam warfare. Not that Viet Kong was all that trained. Yeah, they had "advisors" but that's easy find and many will be eager to partake, when paid well or having interests.
So if you have DEDICATED and FEARLESS army ....... As in foot soldiers....
What hurt Russia in WW2 was not lack of trained soldiers, but lack of leaders. All the best generals were purged by Stalin.
Viet Kong were Guerrilla soldiers. Irregulars. Typical training isn't needed. Irregulars are nothing new to warfare and can be effective if used correctly.
North Vietnam however did have a regular army that were trained and well experienced by the time the American phase of the Vietnam war commenced, they lost every battle it engaged in with US forces (while of course winning the final war, as the strategy was to wear down the US via attrition).
Let's also look at the example of the US military in the initial stages of WWII. The deficiencies caused by the US Navy's lack of war fighting experience took 6 months to correct. Even at Midway they went in not understanding that their aerial torpedoes were duds.
It took the US Army a full year to learn enough to become effective. The landings of Operation Torch against Vichy French troops weren't a true test, but Kasserine Pass in February of 1943(!) was, and the US Army did not perform well.
The German Luftwaffe were able to hone their tactics during the Spanish Civil War, and the Battle of Poland was essentially a training ground for the Wehrmacht given the innate weakness of the Polish Cavalry (cavalry! hahahaha!).
Inactivity and inexperience against the latest tactics take a toll on even well-trained militaries.
A nation's military can be effective after decades of peace if the commanders have had their finger on the pulse. Most Western countries have quite a good intelligence-sharing system in place, and international exercises are very common. Also it's inevitable that in peace-keeping missions you would have to adapt to warlike situations at least occationally. I have heard that in the Finnish Army it's practically impossible to rise to above the rank of Captain if you have zero international experience.
I would say armies like the Polish is very professional, though it hadn't been in war for a long time before Afghanistan. The Ukrainian Army seemed that they hadn't done nothing but watching soccer for the last 25 years, and were caught completely off-guard when the excrement hit the air-cooling device.
Let's also look at the example of the US military in the initial stages of WWII. The deficiencies caused by the US Navy's lack of war fighting experience took 6 months to correct. Even at Midway they went in not understanding that their aerial torpedoes were duds.
It took the US Army a full year to learn enough to become effective. The landings of Operation Torch against Vichy French troops weren't a true test, but Kasserine Pass in February of 1943(!) was, and the US Army did not perform well.
The German Luftwaffe were able to hone their tactics during the Spanish Civil War, and the Battle of Poland was essentially a training ground for the Wehrmacht given the innate weakness of the Polish Cavalry (cavalry! hahahaha!).
Inactivity and inexperience against the latest tactics take a toll on even well-trained militaries.
Yeah but using the US example, it wasn't that we were not experienced...that was some of it. But really the issue was because there was no army to train. Prior to 1940 the US had less than 200,000 in uniform, less than some countries such as Portugal. Our military was like 19th or 20th ranked in power. After 1940 they were in catch up mode.
And of course throwing them into the most effective fighting force in the world at that time, the Wehrmacht, didn't help.
Poland - held out to the German (in the west) and Russian (in the east) combined military forces ALONE, with it's "Polish cavalry haha", almost as long as France did against German forces with it's advanced tanks (much better than German tanks), it's defensive maginot line, and the British Expeditionary forces helping. That's nothing to laugh at.
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