Greatest modern army?

Originally posted by barish What is Austro-Hungarian if we are talking about the modern age?

i made a mistake, forget austro hungary and italy.

Originally posted by Maljkovic Germans: looking at the 20th century, this is probably the best trained army of all. The reason for their failure in both WW is bad leadership and equipment.

Germans had bad equipment? They had probably the best weapons among WWII members. Aeroplanes: Me 109, FW 190, Me 262, Ju 87 - they were the best aeroplanes of their categories. Only German bombers were inferior to British or American. 

Tanks: Tigers, Panters - were there better tanks in WWII? I think that no. The best submarines, artillery, etc. etc. Germans really had no problem with quality of their weapon. IMHO German problem was the ammount of its army. Enemies had much bigger armies and therefore Germany lost the war.

Originally posted by Maljkovic Russians: What to say?�The best description of the Russian army is average. Average leadership, average training and average equipment. They managed to get themselves on almost every wining�side in the last century, but that's a political thing really...

All the Allies managed to get themselves on the winning side, so you could say it was a political thing for any of them. But Russia was certainly the largest single contributor to Germany's defeat. The Western front wouldn't even be possible without Russia.

Also, Russian forces were definately not headed by "average" leadership. Zhukov was particularly brilliant, for instance. Nor were they necessarily technically inferior - the T-34 was an excellent design, and extremely well-suited to production realities, which inspired advanced German designs like the Panther. All modern armour still uses the principle of the sloped glacis which was a revolutionary part of the T-34's design.

The Tiger and Panther were statistically better, but their production cost was enormous, particularly in terms of critical resources which the Germans could not afford. Even the Americans, with their massive industrial capacity, realized that it was better to have a tank that offered more per dollar rather than per tank.

French: The French generals should thank god for the Italians, because if there were'nt any, the French army would the worst led army of all. Excellent equipment, mediocre training.

French military wasn't that bad, but its weakness in the face of the German attack is overrated. The same encounter that defeated France had Britain calling the retreat of the BEF a "miracle" because they managed to get their butts out of there in time. The German victory was not so much due to superior forces of any kind, but to a superior and revolutionary strategy - namely Guderians application of Liddell Hart's "deep battle" theories.

American: The quality of their training has had a continuos improvement throughout the century. Not the best equiped, but not far from it. The best led army most definately

Only somewhat true - the Americans had numerous leadership gaffes, such as the ones which led to the loss of the Phillipines and the defeats at Bataan and Corregidor.

Edited by edgewaters

Lot of reactions I see. That's good. Now let me elaborate a bit. Under the category of equipment I don't only mean the quality of a single piece, but also the overall quantity of it. So 30.000 T-34's beat 6000 Tigers. Get it? It really baffles me when people compare the Tiger to T-34 and are amazed how could the Germans lose to the Russians. Like the JS series never existed, or like the mainstay of German armoured units wasn't the Panzer IV

German airforce had nothing on the Brits, much less the Americans. It didn't really help that the commander of the Luftwafe was apointed through party line.

Artillery? Flak 88 was great, but the British 17-pounders weren't much worse. Number game evened them out.

British submarines were far better then the German ones, unfortunatelly they weren't mass produced.

WWI? Allowing yourself to be pulled into a drag out war with an enemy that has three times more resources-not a good decision.

Besides the Big Bertha, German equipment in WWI didn't have any advantage in comparison with the Antanta.

Edited by Maljkovic

Edgewaters:

As the 1930s progressed, both the War Department and the Navy Department understood that the Phillipine Islands were indefensible.  Much had changed since 1898, most obviously Japan becoming the Great Power in Asia, and with all her military strength concentrated there.

As the second WW developed, 1939-41, it became obvious that the US would be involved soon, and that Germany was the more serious opponent.  That would always be the first priority.

In 1941, the US navy did not have the numerical strength (mostly left over from treaty restrictions) to cover her interests in both Atlantic and Pacific.  Large numbers of warships were under contruction but unavailable; armaments manufacture was just gearing up, and the army and navy were beginning to expand with as yet untrained and inexperienced personnel.

Military leadership understood that the Phillipines were expendable, including MacArthur and Jonathan Wainwright.  There were almost no modern armaments on Guam or the Phillipines, and the navy's Asiatic squadron was small and with old units.  Defense was delegated mostly to 10 or 11 older submarines.  The "Phillipine Army" was new and poorly equipped.

Bataan and Corregidor occupied substantial Japanese forces, and attention, that otherwise would have been turned on the communications between Australia and the US much sooner.  Yes, US forces were defeated there, but valuable time was gained, almost six months.  Within that time, naval forces had been transferred from the Atlantic, and much intensive training conducted with newer arms and equipment. 

The Phillipines constituted a well conducted delaying action (mostly by Wainwright) against overwhelming odds, but in the three months after Corregidor's fall, Coral Sea and Midway occurred, US forces were ashore on Guadalcanal, and Australian troops had been concentrated on New Guinea.

Sometimes you have to make what you can of a defeat.  That is part of military leadership too.

 

As far as the Russians go, I don't consider the tactic of sacrificing your troops en masse particulary brilliant. And this has been the main strategy of the Red Army. The fact that the soldiers didn't respond to this tactic by shooting their commanders (well, not too often) is a sign of good training. Zhukov had some exceptional results, but I see him only as a gambler with a lot of luck.

WWII is a shining moment for Russian military equipment in armored units, but infantry troops were underequipt and there was practically no airforce for most of the war. Best allies of the Russians in this war were General Winter and General Clay, who claimed as many German casulties as the Red Army

Afghanistan was lost despite the fact that Russian forces had superior equipment and numbers. Leadership-lousy.

WWI and the civil war 1918-1922 are more or less identical-won on the fact that Russian generals were willing to invest more corpses than their enemies, and even that wouldn't of been enough in WWI where victory was pracitally carried out by the French.

Edited by Maljkovic

Originally posted by Maljkovic Originally posted by Ponce de Leon I am actually considering that maybe N. KOREA has the greatest modern army. But maybe only in numbers. If we are talking in the number strength then certainly N. Korea is the great one. Russian army buried more men then N.Korea ever had, so you can scratch that.

North Korea has a World War II army with 1950s doctrine, just as Iraq had.  In the limited geography of the Korean peninsula, contemporary air power would devastate it.

 

Italian army?I heard it was the most 10th unnecessary organization in the world.

Originally posted by Maljkovic As far as the Russians go, I don't consider the tactic of sacrificing your troops en masse particulary brilliant. And this has been the main strategy of the Red Army. The fact that the soldiers didn't respond to this tactic by shooting their commanders (well, not too often) is a sign of good training. Zhukov had some exceptional results, but I see him only as a gambler with a lot of luck. WWII is a shining moment for Russian military equipment in armored units, but infantry troops were underequipt and there was practically no airforce for most of the war. Best allies of the Russians in this war were General Winter and General Clay, who claimed as many German casulties as the Red Army

You need update your knowledge about the Red Army , there is a deep evolution between 1941 and 1945.

Hi guys, I am new on the forums, joined because kinda interested in these discussions here.

I would say this:

Russia undoubtedly has most powerful land army and largest unclear arsenal in the world RIGHT NOW, american army stands nowhere near russian or chinese. guess what happens if US starts land operation in Iran, IT LOSES, not in liberating country, not in anti-terrorist stuff, it loses the full scale war, because it is not made to be in full scale war, while armies like Russian or Chinese are, US land army is made to resolve small military conflict or invade small country like Iraq, it is different philosophy of war.

America has most powerful NAVY and aviation, but NEVER land army, they also have second largest nuclear forces.

Americans won ECONOMIC war (Cold war), going in to war with Soviet Union was NOT possible, at least not feasible, if allies would go war on USSR, USSR would not even notice them, within months Stalin would be sitting on shores of Atlantic with all europe being communist, and looking for USA, looking for how he can make it USSA (United Socialist States of America) The problem was US nukes, they were not enough to destroy Red Army, but Red army also didn't want to take risk, in this sense, US literally saved Europe.

and Yes, it is funny to say Average about Russian SS-18, which is feared by americans, or Topol M, or Smerch MLRS, and of course S-400, compare these to their american counterparts and you will easily find out which land army is the most powerful, also I would suggest comparing these units by cost, speed of manufacturing and other production factors my friend, and then make any conclusions about "average" russian land army.

Also, I agree with edgewaters, saying that russian equipment is average is top of ignorance, please, tell me which rocket artillery is better than Smerch, which Anti aircraft defence is better than S-400 and which ICBM is more powerful than SS-18? After you give me answers for these, you can call russian equipment average, the problem is, you will not be able to, get a clue about equipment and then post, Maljkovic.

Also, few words for Gharanai, if Russia or America want it, they will kill all afghanistan people in a year, trust me on that one, the problem is that the reasons of war were different, not to slaughter all afghanis and leave, but to fight terrorism and other stupid causes.

If Russia or America wants, it will, without any air support completely anihilate Afghanistan from the map of the world.

Also, General winter is a common misconception, how did winter help Stalingrad or Moscow?

It stopped german tanks and vehicles, what does it mean? THAT THEY ARE NOT GOOD ENOUGH and not reliable enough, not that winter helps russians, russians, however, had reliable vehicles, General winter is a common MYTH invented by germans and French who didn't like that Russia defeated them, especially germans, invaded How many times did Russia take Berlin? One, NOPE, two times, one more during Katherine rule, apart of course from WW2.

Soviet Union was, as has been stated, the MAJOR force that defeated germans, it was not americans, not british, it was soviets, it was only after soviets started pushing germans back, allies opened second front, US now tries to undermine the role of soviets or russians in WW2 by saying "AHHHH, it was russian winter, our help and that's it, we won", that's not true, Hitler admitted in the beginning of the war that he made mistake by attacking Russia.

Edited by Russian