Most pathetic military unit ever?

[Capt Dizle]

Originally posted by Ned

From the South's point of view, the Civil War was a complete catastrophe. Their civilization and way of life were extinguished.

More than 500,000 Americans lost their lives, and tens of thousands more were maimed and crippled. As well, the property damage in the South was tremendous.

This is one of those wars that should have been avoided. There had to be a solution to the problems of states rights and slavery that would have acceptable to all. The referee, of course, was the Supreme Court. I am only surprised that the South chose to the fight on the battlefield rather than in the Supreme Court, where, as you say, they were doing quite well.

We have discussed here in other threads that it a just war requires more than a just cause. It requires the party initiating the hostilities have a very good chance of winning. I would think that it was obvious that the South had no realistic chance to win an armed conflict with the North. Thus it seems to me they should have been trying to avoid conflict at all costs. This is why I find it hard to believe that they never even tried resolving this disputes in the Supreme Court.

Very little of what you say here makes any sense to me. Yes, the war was catastrophic. The South lost its freedom and right of self determination.

The best solution to the slavery question would have been for the Federalist north to allow the society in the south to evolve naturally rather than to impose its will on sovereign states. The Northern claim to the moral high ground must be viewed with a grain of salt. The North allowed and even participated in slavery for many years and had little to lose economically by its abolition. Slavery's deep roots stretched world wide and existed for thousands of years before the North determined to use violence to abolish an institution that any sane man knew was dying by stages.

As to the issue as to whether the South had a realistic chance to safeguard its independance against Federal agression, of course there was a realistic chance. The fact that it took five years and the death of one half millon to resolve the conflict is confirming evidence.

A just war is not determined by the chance of victory or defeat. To fight for freedom even in the face of insurmountable odds is not merely just, but an example of the utimate nobility of the human soul.

[Tuberski]

Getting back to pathetic military units, how about Iraq's Republican Guard during the Gulf War?

[Immortal Wombat]

I add a nomination to the Russian anti-tank dogs

[Ned]

Late in WWII, the Soviets formed an all-women division who attacked the Nazi's. Guess what happened?

[Buck Birdseed]

The one consisting entirely of my Great Grandfather in WWI. A typical desktop general in the Austrohungarian army (he'd achieved his post through numerous duels), he eagerly volounteered for command because he felt it was his patriotic duty. Sent to Italy, he was placed in command of a brigade, which he ordered to march to a certain valley. He then rode ahead to be able to see the site first-hand, ahead of what he imagined to be the main force, and was immediately captured by the large force of Italian soldiers stationed there. His brigade had rather more wisely stayed just where they were.

He later proceeded to try to escape from the most beneficial imprisonment ever concieved, also out of patriotic duty. But then that's another story.

[Traianvs]

The Persian army who couldn't beat a lousy 300 Spartans.

Well it was more than that they also had several allies (of which most fleed before the final battle where the spartans were slaughtered) and let's not forget that every spartan soldier had 8 helot slaves as light armed troops etc... on top of that, the pass was extremely easy to defend, with a wall to block a frontal assault...
and, let's not forget the greek pikes were very long, and outranged the persian spears (or whatever weapon they had) by far, and also the pass was so narrow that the persian force didn't really have enough space to manoeuvre well...

I'd say they had so many casualties due to bad leadership... all the other battles they had lost were only due to bad leadership (though a great deal of luck for the greeks did play a role, such as many persian ships being wrecked in several storms, and other smaller lucky events that eventually did help a lot!!). However again, Darius the fool was one stupid leader

The battle at cannae was not because of worthless roman units, on the contrary, the crushing defeat was only, and ONLY because of the superb leadership of Hannibal (which was, undoubtedly, together with Pyrrhus one of the best ancient generals ever)... Hannibal was never defeated in battle in Italy (he was defeated near Zuma in North Africa later though) however he sometimes sent troops elsewhere or got reinforcements under other generals... the romans knew that of course, and those battles they won, due to their superior army

the most useless troops must have been the Belgian army in WW2, (they surrendered after a long and tough battle of like 8 days or something!!!) i thought the only thing the nazis had to do was capture a stronghold near Namur, LOL

[Saint Marcus]

no, the Belgians held out for 2 weeks

the danish and luxemboughians surrendered after 1 day. The Dutch lasted 3 days.

[johncmcleod]

No, you're wrong. The invasion of the low countries and France began on May 10, 1940. The Dutch surrendered on the 15th, and the Belgians on the 28th. For more info on that go to my webpage at http://members.tripod.com/John_C_McLeod/BL.htm

[Ikarus]

Originally posted by Felch X


Luftwaffe had to fight a far better equipped (and gigantic) American Army Air Corps, and the RAF. The French never had to do such things.

What does this mean. The Americans weren't even involved during the battle of France, and the RAF didn't help much. I guess I should have specified the Battle of France.

[David Floyd]

You really don't understand war at all. The Germans had an superbly trained military but attacked a major city and exhausted its resources.

Actually, by summer of 1943 the German Army had showed a remarkable recovery, winning several tactical victories in the Ukraine. The Kursk offensive destroyed this recovery, and the next year, Operation Bagration tore the entire Army Group Centre apart.

As to a "superbly trained military", this was definitely true at the beginning of the war, but the Eastern Front devastated the German military's NCOs and junior officers, and Hitler sacked or misused the best senior commanders.

I'm no fan of the Red Army, mind you - without the Western Allies and Lend Lease it still would have lost - it's just that you're misstating the facts.

The only redeeming quality the Russians had were the snipers they had in Stalingrad.

The T-34 and the Iosef Stalin tanks weren't so bad either, nor were the Sturmoviks or the Katyushkas. There was far more to the Eastern Front than Stalingrad - yes, Stalingrad probably precluded anything better than a stalemate for Germany (which was still possible until Kursk and especially Operation Bagration), but it was not the only important battle.

[David Floyd]

Oh, and as for worst military unit ever, one unit no one has brought up are German "parachute divisions" which were actually made up of Luftwaffe forces which received almost 0 infantry training and were thrown into battle. The 9th Parachute Division, for example, was the first major German unit to crack at the Seelow Heights, and this whole concept of using air force personnel as infantry was bad from the beginning. Volksstrum units were pretty bad too, although they did not have as high of expectations as the Luftwaffe units did.

Russian paratroops without parachutes have already been mentioned.

The IJA wasn't very good either, especially in terms of armor and infantry equipment such as rifles. The Japanese myth of invincibility at jungle fighting was just that - a myth.

The Chinese army as a whole throughout the 20th Century has been pretty terrible, in my opinion.

Let's see...the Russian navy in the Russo-Japanese War and the Spanish fleet in the Spanish-American war didn't perform very well.

[Ned]

David Floyd, I ran across a site today that had quotes from all top Nazi's generals and business leaders on why they lost the war. To a man, they attribute their loss to Allied airpower. The loss of their oil fields was critical loss No. 1. The loss of their ball bearing plants No. 2. Finally, the virtually complete destruction of their railway and communications systems made movement and resupply virtually impossible. Even from a tactical level, the German Army was immobolized by Allied airpower. No German unit could move during daylight.

Most of this occurred in the West. However, I don't doubt that Soviet tactical air dominated in the East almost as much.

The more one understands how effective airpower was against Germany, one can understand why the US continues to rely on airpower as its primary weapon.

[notyoueither]

Air power rules. Guderian dreamt it, but he never dreamt it to be as significant as it is.

[Boris Godunov]

Germany lost the war thanks to the boneheaded decisions of Der Fuhrer. The airpower of the allies wouldn't have been a problem had they not f*cked things up in the years beforehand.

[notyoueither]

You mean if they'd been in a position to defeat the 8th Air Force, Bomber Command, and the various tactical air units? Then yes, it would have lasted longer. The end would have been the same unless they had managed to obliterate the Soviets.

Western Allied air power defeated the German war machine before the ground forces had to fire many shots. Time and again.

It is difficult to survive in a Tiger when a P47 is strafing your butt with rockets.

It is difficult to survive period when 1,000 B17's decide your patch of ground is gonna be carpet bombed.