Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: Kevin14 on August 10, 2003, 10:30:16 AM
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Which unit (American GI's in WWII, current British forces, etc.) do you think had/has the best trained soldiers? Or, who do you think would win in a squad-sized battle with all the same weapons and tactics, where only the training of the soldiers makes a difference? I'm not sure so I'll leave it up to you guys.
Oh, and we're talking about Army units, so no SEALs or anything.
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The 101st Airborne
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Take a look at the porcelain soldiers......
http://www.hackworth.com/article04032002c.html
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Gonna go with what my grandpa was in: First Special Service Force - "Devil's Brigade". Was a joint Canadian-United States formation for special operations in Europe.
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Marine Corps Raiders
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Was a good movie as well Nash. Gramps wouldn't happaned to have been Sgt. Peacock would he :D
Back on subject.
I'd have to say rangers.
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Maybe Caesar's Roman soldiers?
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Not American, but I'll mention the British SAS
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If we're going on proven ability then it's got to be the British SAS, simply because they have more experience. That said, I wouldn't like to bet on the result of a firefight between the SAS and America's Delta Force or the Israeli Sayeret Makal (sp?).
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If we're allowed to go back in time, I'll cite the Roman Legions as being real hard b*st*rds.
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the question was "best trained US soldiers in WW2", so there are no delta force or seals (navy had UDT) . i say it's a toss up between army rangers, airborn, and marines.
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Originally posted by john9001
the question was "best trained US soldiers in WW2", so there are no delta force or seals (navy had UDT) . i say it's a toss up between army rangers, airborn, and marines.
No, any unit in the Army branch of a country's military you think is the best. American GI's in WWII was just an example. And yes you can go back in time. Sorry for the mistake :)
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oh sure ...go ahead and change the rules....lol
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my opinion (not that its worth much) -
Ancient: Roman Legionairre's
WW2 : Waffen SS
Modern : SAS or SBS
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Animal: "Not american.....
Lol, you're like a broken record. Can't wait to get a dig in against the U.S.
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Originally posted by Kevin14
And yes you can go back in time.
According to the Second law of Thermodynamics, entropy must increase in all processes. In travelling backwards thru time entropy must decrease thus violating the 2nd law.
However, as Stephen Hawking has proposed, if one looks at spacetime and possible wormhole formation the folding or warping of space-time due to Einsteinian general relavistic gravitational effects theoretically may occur so that one end of a wormhole may fold into an earlier time in the continuum.
However this brings in the classical paradox about killing one's grandfather. So it may be able to travel thru the wormhole and then be somehow isolated from the earlier epoc so that the time traveller's interaction with that time is limited in scope. The mechanism of this theoretical isolation is not fully understood, although study of relationships involving xenon preclusion have shown recent promise.
So it may be possible, but probably not at our present level of technology. But if you could, you could then send a cybernetic organism of a robotic endoskeleton, covered with living tissue back to kill your enemies before they are trained. Then you could program it to run for public office and insidiously take control of the political system......yeah.. that would be an effective soldier.
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I heard the Army SEALs were a tough bunch so I'll have to go with that as my answer.
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SEALS are navy , not army
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Definitely German troops in WW2. Not too familiar with their special forces, but their paratroopers were probably some bad mofos.
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Originally posted by udet
Definitely German troops in WW2. Not too familiar with their special forces, but their paratroopers were probably some bad mofos.
Yeah, I was gonna say the Fallschirmjager(sp?) also.
Lol, in the main post I said
...Oh, and we're talking about Army units, so no SEALs or anything.
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Originally posted by Kevin14
Yeah, I was gonna say the Fallschirmjager(sp?) also.
Lol, in the main post I said
FJ were Luftwaffe not Wehrmacht.
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romans are overrated. they got owned when they tried to fight the germans.
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The Grognards of the Imperial Guard........
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thread wasn't about the best.
It was about the best trained!
How can any other army in ancient times be compared to the roman army in terms of training?
I have a book about the Waffen SS and their training was brutal, thats why they were such fanatical, excellent soldiers.
It is very unlikely that any modern force has as much experience or training as the SAS. A special forces group that used its expertise from the second world war to great use in Gulf War I and no doubt II.
Thats how i based my answers anyway.
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Ive trained with some Royal Marines... they made some of our guys look like boy scouts.
EDIT: What about the Foreign Legion?
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Originally posted by Furball
my opinion (not that its worth much) -
Ancient: Roman Legionairre's
WW2 : Waffen SS
Modern : SAS or SBS
I agree..
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I agree too.
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Canadian Army WW1. It was the first time since Sparta that an entire nations army was considered elite forces.
Int: Small cafe in France (1917), French officers are sitting around drinking wine.
Enter Adjunct.
Adjunct: Vimy a été pris.
Officer: C'est impossible!
Adjunct: C'est les Canadiens.
Officer: C'est possible.
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I go for the Hamas and Hisbollah! they are soldiers from god:D
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Ancient: Parthian mounted archers
WW1: Canadian/New Zealand or Australian Infantry
WW2: 101st Airborne/ 1st Airborne Division (British) or the elite Waffen SS Formations (LSAH/Das Reich/Wiking)
Modern: Australian SAS /The Royal Marines
Tronsky
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hmmm... best trained but undisiplined by military standards would be blackfeet warriors. their nation was only broken by biowarfare, wool blankets laden with smallpox, that killed 2/3rds of the entire blackfeet tribe. when lewis and clark explored the west that was the tribe that all the other tribes warn them of. but that was before the us govt. killed them off. and they were wise to stay well clear of them. as far as toughest, my pick is my uncle al's unit in ww2. "merrill's marauders" he was a mule skinner in that unit in burma.
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Waffen SS,
2nd SS Das Reich to be exact, the Deutschland Regiment to be very specific. That is the best trained unit and the unit with the best combat record.
Closely followed by 12th SS Hitlerjugend, the combination of 17-19 yr old fanatic ex-hitlerjugend kids as soldiers and 25-30 yr old eastern front veterans as NCO's and officers proved to be extremely efficient.
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To stick to the letter of the title.
Ancient: The Spartans in their prime, unsurpassed I think.
Mid millenium: The Janissaries, captured boys usually Christiian converted to Islam and trained to be the elite warriors of the Turks.
Napoleonic: The British army.
WW1: Toss up between the German and the British armies
WW2: Probably Das Reich as Hortlund says, or any Waffen SS but only mid war. Late in the war fanaticism made up for training. Same goes for any German formation. The Fallschirmjager were diluted by transfers of Luftwaffe personnel late in the war. in fact the paratroops of America, Britain were directly comparable and just as good.
Current: The Royal Marines, no contest.
Man for man though in fighting qualities, the Germans have it. I suspect that's still true even though they don't fight warsnowdays. It's a national characteristic. Let's not forget Israel, quite simply they have to be the best, their survival depends on it.
An of course, although I admit bias here, the Irish. Few are the wars where no Irishman or Irish unit served. Sometimes on both sides. We love trouble. In any squad size battle the Irish would win or get wiped out. LOL:D
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A third of the British army in the Napoleonic wars was Irish.
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The 2nd US Calvary.
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Whats w/indiv's feeling the need to get a dig in on US soldiers?
Our guys are trained well... they have repeatly done thier job through out our history as a nation. They have repeatly won alot more than they have lost as well. They have shown bravery equal to anything displayed by other nations through out our short lived history.
I was trained in Ft Benning. It wasnt no cake walk but it certainly wasnt some sort of super duper training course designed to make hardcore killing machines..lol. You are trained to be able to kill in battle w/out remorse...or at least w/out thinking about the rights or wrongs of it. The physical min's MUST be met to graduate and no,,they are not particualry hard. If I remember it was like 45 pushups, run 2 miles in like 16 min's or so and 45 situps. My bet is that many of the wanna be's I see trolling these boards couldnt meet those standards.
Soldiers learn to be real soldiers in thier units. This is where they train. Guess what you do as an American Combat type... TRAIN...TRAIN,PT PT PT TRAIN TRAIN TRAIN w/inspections and other crap thrown in between.
I can remember training beside Brit's. We did fine..they did fine. Guess what... we werent much different.
I was a US soldier and I'm pretty Golly-geen proud of what I did/saw and the way I trained. I take hard core offense to any mush mouth on these boards that feels the need to bust on us/myself. My money is that I could of layed the smoke on most of you pathatic mealy mouthed wanna be's w/out much effort when I was in.
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A bit touchy, aren't you Batdog? I don't see anyone dissing American soldiers in this thread. So, people are saying that other units are better, so what?
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The Sixth US Army had the best trained US Soldiers in WWII in a unit that is not well known, and was theatre specific. I am, of course, refering to the Alamo Scouts. Alamo Scouts served from New Guinea to the Phillipines and did not suffer a single combat fatality during the war. However, 2%, or thereabouts, fatality rate was suffered during training because all training was done with live ammunition.
Is there any other combat unit the US Army in WWII that can claim
that they never suffered a single combat fatality? Alamo Scouts often operated deep behind Japanese lines.
You can find out more about the Alamo Scouts by doing a search on the web.
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QTS, look further up the thread to Animal's post.
The first thing he says is: Not American...
Others mentioned their opinions without saying something so blatantly bigoted. It was a totally unnecessary remark made by a POS.
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I'm surprised the 442nd Regimental Combat Team hasn't been mentioned yet.
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Originally posted by Patches
The Sixth US Army had the best trained US Soldiers in WWII in a unit that is not well known, and was theatre specific. I am, of course, refering to the Alamo Scouts...
Yes, I read a book where they talked about them, it was called The Death March or something.
Originally posted by batdog
If I remember it was like 45 pushups, run 2 miles in like 16 min's or so and 45 situps. My bet is that many of the wanna be's I see trolling these boards couldnt meet those standards...
That's it? In my 8th grade gym class more than half of the class could meet those requirements. Especially 45 sit-ups, which would be a piece of cake. I could also easily make the 2 mile run but the 45 pushups would be the only part I might have a problem with.
batdog, we are not bashing Americans in any way, I myself am an American. Like Steve said, some people may have different opinions than you, which is human.
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Originally posted by Kevin14
Yes, I read a book where they talked about them, it was called The Death March or something.
That's it? In my 8th grade gym class more than half of the class could meet those requirements. Especially 45 sit-ups, which would be a piece of cake. I could also easily make the 2 mile run but the 45 pushups would be the only part I might have a problem with.
batdog, we are not bashing Americans in any way, I myself am an American. Like Steve said, some people may have different opinions than you, which is human.
Kevin, I TAKE NO offense to indiv's saying they think other miltary units/branch's rate higher than that of the United States. I do take offense to indiv's feeling the need to bash them for no reason other than perhaps thier dislike of the current political party in the oval office at this time.
Soldiers ask not...sometimes its sad but true.
As far as the physical requirements go...yea..they aint special by no means. I will say that your PT will improve depending on the unit you go to. If for example you end up in a light unit say..the 7th in Frt Ord or perhaps the 10th Mtn you WILL get stronger and your endurance WILL increase. 10-15-20+ mile road marchs/forced marchs will make you strong.
PT is wierd...I've seen guys max PT tests yet rot on a forced march. I've seen chubby guys barely pass the min's for PT/age groups yet excel in a field enviroment. This IS rare..usually the PT stud will excel of course... a strong body supports a strong mind.
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Originally posted by Kevin14
That's it? In my 8th grade gym class more than half of the class could meet those requirements. Especially 45 sit-ups, which would be a piece of cake. I could also easily make the 2 mile run but the 45 pushups would be the only part I might have a problem with.
Let's see you do it with someone trying to kill you, which is the reason for the being "highly" trained.
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Batdog,
This thread was started as a way to enhance our knowledge via individual opinions and studies. That you are proud of your US Army service goes without challenge. I served in the US Army from 1968-1970, including a tour in Viet Nam. Then, in 1973, I joined the US Marine Corps and served until 1979. Sofar, I have taken no offense to anything anyone else has posted, and have been educated along the way. I don't think anyone has posted " out-of-line ", nor offensively.
Take a deep breath, feel the lungs burn on the last few hundred yards of a 10 mile run, and thank the Good Lord that there is great beer and ale in this world to heal wounded lungs.
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A third of the British army in the Napoleonic wars was Irish.
Good point, Dowding, as was Wellington himself although he didn't like to admit it. There is an enormous monument to him in a park near here listing an impressive roll of his victories.
I would like to add to my list because in effect the Pacific was a seperate war:
Pacific WW2: US Marines, no contest there either and to be fair the Marines are up there with the best of them to this day.
I read the article about the porcelain soldiers. Good points were made but the author was at pains to point out these were support troops training and things were different at places like Fort Benning. Modern armies depend heavily on support troops, there is no real need to turn out warriors when their whole career, which can be as short as a year is spent at a computer keyboard. Many aircrew can barely hold a gun but you would hardly call them untrained. Basic training is just that, basic training. As anyone who has been through it knows it's more about mental attitude than physical attributes. I had no problem with it but several guys, couldn't march, couldn't shoot, couldn't run or even wear their uniform probably. They just made our lives harder because they annoyed the instructors who got on our case. Every army is the same on that subject I think.
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The era of WW2:
I am surprized nobody mentions the Japanese. I do not know so well of individual units, but they had some mean ones for sure.
Apart from those: British Commandos probably, earning death if they were captured by the Germans.
Than again, German Fallchirmjager, or perhaps some certain units of the elite SS were hard as nails too, - awww....so were the British Paras...etc...etc
Ok, put my money on the Commandos
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If for example you end up in a light unit say..the 7th in Frt Ord or perhaps the 10th Mtn
Too light to fight, too dumb to run :) I was in the Bayonet Division at Ord....must have put about a million miles on my legs :)
Don't really have an opinion about the thread topic. Any opinion turns into the normal "my dad can beat up your dad" crap.
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Originally posted by Patches
Batdog,
This thread was started as a way to enhance our knowledge via individual opinions and studies. That you are proud of your US Army service goes without challenge. I served in the US Army from 1968-1970, including a tour in Viet Nam. Then, in 1973, I joined the US Marine Corps and served until 1979. Sofar, I have taken no offense to anything anyone else has posted, and have been educated along the way. I don't think anyone has posted " out-of-line ", nor offensively.
Take a deep breath, feel the lungs burn on the last few hundred yards of a 10 mile run, and thank the Good Lord that there is great beer and ale in this world to heal wounded lungs.
... Yea... I think I misread Animal's quote (I still love the little **** regardless of his opinion) and the article from Hackworth annoyed me as well.
The sad thing is that Col Hackworth is right. In the mid 90's I trained some troops at Benning. I had a good bunch..squared away and highly motivated. There was this one soldier (dark green issue for what its worth) that was VERY squared away. I remember him saying that he felt that basic was too EASY. The drills told me the couldn't "cuss" a troop and troops had thier "personal space". I was like WTF... I'm sure Mr Foe will respect that...
Thank god for the units. You goto a unit such as the 75 Ranger Reg, 82nd, or just about any other line doggy unit your gonna learn to deal w/stuff like that. You WILL get smoked. I remember doing the Kwola (SP? That bear like critter from down under) many a time for screwing this or that up. I remember wondering WTF had I gotten my bellybutton into,lol.
Anyway... time for me to STFU and drive on.
For the record I think any miltary man who swung a sword for hours and hours and could possiabley die from just a nick was/is the sh*&. The old warriors had hardcore iron balls.
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That's it? In my 8th grade gym class more than half of the class could meet those requirements. Especially 45 sit-ups, which would be a piece of cake. I could also easily make the 2 mile run but the 45 pushups would be the only part I might have a problem with.
They aren't half assed, bull**** pushups and situps. For the situps, your knees are bent and your ankles held, your butt can't leave the floor, you can't bounce and you can't rest in the down position, you hands can't unclasp.
For the push ups, your back has to remain rigid and straight, your elbows have to break 90 degrees and you can't rest in the down position.
Basically, it's how many perfect pushups and situps you can do in a row without resting, since the only ways you can rest provide strain. There's nothing quite like taking a PT test and hearing: 33, 34, 34, 34, 35, 36, 36...
[edit: sadly, I probably couldn't do more than 10 of each today after sitiing on my bellybutton for the past 10 years :(]
Charon
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Originally posted by -tronski-
Ancient: Parthian mounted archers
WW1: Canadian/New Zealand or Australian Infantry
WW2: 101st Airborne/ 1st Airborne Division (British) or the elite Waffen SS Formations (LSAH/Das Reich/Wiking)
Modern: Australian SAS /The Royal Marines
Tronsky
Didn't think training given to Aussie troops in WWI was anything special?? More to do with the fact that they were all hard as nails bushmen/ stockmen/railway workers etc before they joined I thought. I think it was more their spirit than their training that served them so well.
I think you would have to be more specific as to what area of warfare you are talking about with modern day stuff, as it seems a lot of Armies are leaning toward more and more specialised training and equipment for a specific form of warfare.
For the sheer numbers, ability to deliver firepower onto a target, and the ability to maintain an army far from home for long periods of time, none can do it like the Yanks can, and several of their individual units can rightly be called Elite, and measured beside the best the world has.
But for the training standard of your average Joe Grunt Infantryman, across the board, I would have to do the patriotic flag waving thingy, and say the Aussie Army is right up there with the best of 'em.
And I would have to agree, WWII, the Imperial Japanese Marines would have to get a mention, after all, it took the Yanks, the Brits, the Aussies, the Kiwis, and several other nations to pull 'em up....they must have been doing something right eh?( Just like to add that the first time one of their assaults WAS pulled up, spanked, and sent packing, was by Aussies:) )
P.S. I know a couple of ex-Rhodesian Light Infantrymen.....some SERIOUSLY hard bastards (Still. They're both in their 50s), I think they, and the Selous Scouts deffinately warrant a mention anywhere exceptional training is discussed.
And I would say that when it comes to Internal Security/ Counter Revolutionary/ Counter Terrorist type stuff, the Brits win hands down, they have about 1000 years or so practise/ experience.
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Originally posted by Bluedog
Didn't think training given to Aussie troops in WWI was anything special?? More to do with the fact that they were all hard as nails bushmen/ stockmen/railway workers etc before they joined I thought. I think it was more their spirit than their training that served them so well.
I think you would have to be more specific as to what area of warfare you are talking about with modern day stuff, as it seems a lot of Armies are leaning toward more and more specialised training and equipment for a specific form of warfare.
For the sheer numbers, ability to deliver firepower onto a target, and the ability to maintain an army far from home for long periods of time, none can do it like the Yanks can, and several of their individual units can rightly be called Elite, and measured beside the best the world has.
But for the training standard of your average Joe Grunt Infantryman, across the board, I would have to do the patriotic flag waving thingy, and say the Aussie Army is right up there with the best of 'em.
And I would have to agree, WWII, the Imperial Japanese Marines would have to get a mention, after all, it took the Yanks, the Brits, the Aussies, the Kiwis, and several other nations to pull 'em up....they must have been doing something right eh?( Just like to add that the first time one of their assaults WAS pulled up, spanked, and sent packing, was by Aussies:) )
P.S. I know a couple of ex-Rhodesian Light Infantrymen.....some SERIOUSLY hard bastards (Still. They're both in their 50s), I think they, and the Selous Scouts deffinately warrant a mention anywhere exceptional training is discussed.
And I would say that when it comes to Internal Security/ Counter Revolutionary/ Counter Terrorist type stuff, the Brits win hands down, they have about 1000 years or so practise/ experience.
Good points all...
The dominion soldiers were easily the best infantry in WW1.
Surprisingly the Anzacs/Canadians of WW1 did actually train extensively, largely before big attacks. Monash and Birdwood both drilled the I/II Anzac Corps troops rigorously in new assault techniques before Passchendaele for example.
I did consider the Japanese Marines and assault units, but consider the Allied parachute units I noted to be far superior, and their associated training to be the basis of their effectiveness.
Mind you, again as you pointed out...the Aussies (and militia at that) were the first to send them packing.
Tronsky