Can the US win a war ? ..., page 6

I've read a few of these replies and a lot of people here are on the right track as far as how a real opponent like Russia or China would completely change the face of battle that the U.S. is not accustomed to.

Let us consider what happened to the finest fighting force in the world back in the early 1940s. The German Wehrmacht. They had the best weapons, best technology, and the best training that the world had to offer at that point. But what the Germans lacked was overlooked and became a crucial deficit.... The correct psychology to fight the Russians. Let me give it to you all from the German's themselves who said: When fighting the western allies there would be breaks in the fighting in order for the wounded to be evacuated for both sides. Fighting would knock off at sunset and over running an enemy would cause him to surrender. But when fighting the Russians they had to contend with a determined enemy who would drive right over their own wounded in order to get the opportunity to kill more Germans. If you over ran their positions this did not mean that the fighting ended by any means because now you had to worry about being shot in the back so you'd best eliminate the entire pocket of resistance before you pressed on.

The Russians were known to do things like this too, such as marching shoulder to shoulder through mine fields just so they could keep the pressure on the Germans and diminish their chances for orderly withdrawals. When they were short on nylon they would fly low and have their paratroopers jump from the planes without chutes. The ideology there was that a certain percentage of them would live in order to harass German rear positions.

Has America faced this kind of mentality before? Yes, but this was against a Japanese opponent with vastly limited firepower in almost all cases. The U.S. also faced China in Korea and was in no hurry to fight the Chinese again when they barely fought their way to a truce.

Now, Russians and Chinese will be much better equipped and have weaponry that is usually at parity with the U.S. soldiers and in some cases will be surprisingly superior. They are likely to have superior numbers too. I don't know how many of you know this, but numbers work. In a field of battle casualties mount quickly. If you don't have the reserves to fill the opening gaps then you will have no choice but to continually withdraw or contract in order to cover your flanks. The Germans found this out the hard way.

Also, now that we have opened the casualty can of worms let's focus on how the U.S. will quickly be at a disadvantage. The Iraq fatality numbers were on the order of about 7-10 soldiers a week for a while. This would not be the case against a truly equipped and trained army. We would be facing thousands of casualties a week and sometimes per day. Would American popular support stand for this? I think not. We would be driven to the negotiating table inside of 2 months with a battle with either the Russians or Chinese. Don't let this assessment escape you. Casualties will be horrendous on both sides but our side will not have the manpower nor psychology to withstand such staggering loss of life. This is why the U.S. has been picking on little countries lately. The Pentagon boys know their limitations people.

Here is another crucial tidbit that should be considered. Our media and generals like to gloat over how our special forces mounted daring behind enemy lines raids. Well at least for the Russians sake, they will be doing the same things to our army. But they won't be doing photo opps to rescue soldiers in skirts I assure you. They will be doing nasty things like Command infiltration and elimination. Blowing up supply centers etc. Imagine a press conference being blown sky high right in the middle of broadcasting! Wouldn't that just be a pisser for public morale?

The days of dictating the battlefield would cease with either of those two opponents.