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Briefly mentioned but I think underrated here?

Cost.

War, is bloody expensive. Like, ridiculously, stupidly, bloody expensive. The mention above about how air superiority mattered in Afghanistan. Not only can you reduce the impact of artillery, but each position or piece destroyed is a whole in your enemy’s pocket.

Infantry are comparatively cheap - and in theory at least, only get better and better at their job.

Sure, a man alone isn’t going to reduce a tank to burning wreckage with a fart. But he can steal it, or remove essential engine parts, sabotage it etc given the right opportunity.

See British raids in WW2. Tales of a few dudes in jeeps driving down German runways, shooting up the planes. Apparently*, the Germans assumed it was a much larger attack and fled to regroup. One Commando (might’ve been SAS**) went from plane to plane, ripping out dials and instruments by hand.

Compare that to a missile strike. First those missiles are not cheap. And again I’d assume a competent commander has to assume not all such missiles will reach the target, increasing the cost further still.

The damage done will also be inherently indiscriminate. Whereas an infantry attack can also do a Smash and Grab on command posts. Sure they may not have time to carefully sift through whatever documents, laptops, charts and what have you - but grab what you can, stuff in a pocket and bring it back is still a better opportunity to find Something Juicy than just asploding the whole place.

And it’s potentially a much, much cheaper option. And if you really want the whole place to do a lovely big kaboom when you’re done? Potentially sabotage enemy munition stores etc.

*sorry to be vague. I say apparently as it needs better citation

**this is why it needs better citation than my cluttered memories.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:


Infantry. China has two billion people. That’s a problem. If the US plan is they surrender once the fleet has been sank that’s a big assumption to make.

Once the fleet is sunk, China gets no oil and no fertilizers. China has to import both these things just to avoid starving to death. The US doesn't have to invade, they just have to blockade. No country in the world is in a position to assist China in this scenario, there are no pipelines of oil/gas running from Russia.

You're right that China won't surrender without an invasion. But infantry isn't an issue if you don't have to invade at all.

 John Prins wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:


Infantry. China has two billion people. That’s a problem. If the US plan is they surrender once the fleet has been sank that’s a big assumption to make.

Once the fleet is sunk, China gets no oil and no fertilizers. China has to import both these things just to avoid starving to death. The US doesn't have to invade, they just have to blockade. No country in the world is in a position to assist China in this scenario, there are no pipelines of oil/gas running from Russia.

You're right that China won't surrender without an invasion. But infantry isn't an issue if you don't have to invade at all.

have you looked at a map?

You realise that China is in eurasia. And you realise that the country behind is russia, which has you guessed it, Oil, Gas, Fertilisers, metals, etc. And is very willing to cooperate.
Blowing up the chinese fleet means quite literally feth all.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Briefly mentioned but I think underrated here?

Cost.

War, is bloody expensive. Like, ridiculously, stupidly, bloody expensive. The mention above about how air superiority mattered in Afghanistan. Not only can you reduce the impact of artillery, but each position or piece destroyed is a whole in your enemy’s pocket.

Infantry are comparatively cheap - and in theory at least, only get better and better at their job.

Sure, a man alone isn’t going to reduce a tank to burning wreckage with a fart. But he can steal it, or remove essential engine parts, sabotage it etc given the right opportunity.

See British raids in WW2. Tales of a few dudes in jeeps driving down German runways, shooting up the planes. Apparently*, the Germans assumed it was a much larger attack and fled to regroup. One Commando (might’ve been SAS**) went from plane to plane, ripping out dials and instruments by hand.

Compare that to a missile strike. First those missiles are not cheap. And again I’d assume a competent commander has to assume not all such missiles will reach the target, increasing the cost further still.

The damage done will also be inherently indiscriminate. Whereas an infantry attack can also do a Smash and Grab on command posts. Sure they may not have time to carefully sift through whatever documents, laptops, charts and what have you - but grab what you can, stuff in a pocket and bring it back is still a better opportunity to find Something Juicy than just asploding the whole place.

And it’s potentially a much, much cheaper option. And if you really want the whole place to do a lovely big kaboom when you’re done? Potentially sabotage enemy munition stores etc.

*sorry to be vague. I say apparently as it needs better citation

**this is why it needs better citation than my cluttered memories.

My name is Tsagualsa, and i am here to help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raid_on_Sidi_Haneish_Airfield

To add to the excellent points you made: other than cost, Infantry is also extremely flexible and can do almost anything in a pinch, including the important non-combat stuff. Need to fill potholes and re-run electricity and phone lines? A platoon of grunts will do the job! Need to erect tents for refugees, dig latrines and prepare meals for a couple hundred people? A platoon of grunts will do the job! Need to scout a safe route through terrain that's questionable, mined or compromised in other ways? Grunts will manage. From just standing around and securing an area, to gathering and interpreting intelligence, liasing with locals, doing emergency repairs on vehicles or rendering first aid to the populace, there's not much that is completely outside of the abilities of regular infantry, provided you're only looking for a 'good enough' job that gets you by till the specialists arrive. And you get all of that for little investment and only the most basic logistics and support needs - as long as you're operating in an area that qualifies as 'livable' for humans, infantry just needs a regular supply of food and water and a safe-ish place to rest and recreate to function for functionally unlimited amounts of time, and in all but the most unfriendly or unforgiving environments a lot of that can be sourced locally if the need arises. Contrary to that, tanks or planes have almost as much necessary downtime for refueling, maintainance and so on as they have operating hours, require sophisticated supply chains and tons and tons of material, and have very specific needs for their basing and maintenance areas as well as severe restrictions on the environments in which they can operate.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

Engineers are logistics and aren’t front line combat troops.

Clearly you've never seen 12Bs (US Army combat engineer MOS) in action or have any idea what they do. Not a logistics function at all.

Tsagualsa wrote:
. Contrary to that, tanks or planes have almost as much necessary downtime for refueling, maintainance and so on.

Not seeking to discount anything you've said, but you're slightly underplaying this. Picture 10 hours maint for 1 hour flying. Aircraft that carry out longer sorties, either through transit or loiter, can be more efficient. But your bomb droppers consume huge amounts of workforce hours. Now, the maint can be divided among multiple personnel, compared with the single person in the seat of the aircraft, but that's what it takes to get a machine moving. Anyone who has seen the large support staff for a motor sports team will have some appreciation of the investment.

 Henry wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:
. Contrary to that, tanks or planes have almost as much necessary downtime for refueling, maintainance and so on.

Not seeking to discount anything you've said, but you're slightly underplaying this. Picture 10 hours maint for 1 hour flying. Aircraft that carry out longer sorties, either through transit or loiter, can be more efficient. But your bomb droppers consume huge amounts of workforce hours. Now, the maint can be divided among multiple personnel, compared with the single person in the seat of the aircraft, but that's what it takes to get a machine moving. Anyone who has seen the large support staff for a motor sports team will have some appreciation of the investment.

I’m guessing there’s no sense corner cutting that either. No point sending bombers up if you’re less than certain they’ll do the job.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 Henry wrote:

Tsagualsa wrote:
. Contrary to that, tanks or planes have almost as much necessary downtime for refueling, maintainance and so on.

Not seeking to discount anything you've said, but you're slightly underplaying this. Picture 10 hours maint for 1 hour flying. Aircraft that carry out longer sorties, either through transit or loiter, can be more efficient. But your bomb droppers consume huge amounts of workforce hours. Now, the maint can be divided among multiple personnel, compared with the single person in the seat of the aircraft, but that's what it takes to get a machine moving. Anyone who has seen the large support staff for a motor sports team will have some appreciation of the investment.

I’m guessing there’s no sense corner cutting that either. No point sending bombers up if you’re less than certain they’ll do the job.

The tech level capability and ability to maintain those airframes decides a lot.

B-52: Has the potential to be in service for 100years.

Look up the amount of younger bombers the US has retired or will retire before the '52 goes out of service.

The B-52 is an infantryman of the skies..

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

I’m guessing there’s no sense corner cutting that either. No point sending bombers up if you’re less than certain they’ll do the job.

Well, that's open for debate. There was an incident the other day where two US Blackhawks had a mid-air, I haven't read the cause yet. Osprey were once called "marine killers" for their habit of developing fatal in-flight technical faults. We had a massive reaction from one of our own ac blowing up over Afghan leading to the current maintenance culture. Did we go too far? Are we too risk averse? What if the enemy were coming over the hill waving their weaponry at us?

Then there's the questions of the supply chain, the ludicrous expense of government contracts, underfunding for basic needs because of government cuts, and the CAA (just like every national aviation authority) being a license to print money. Air power is chuffing expensive, time consuming and, if you've never been involved, you'd be amazed at the depth of philosophy required to ensure its safe projection.

Less than as a certain as you can be then? 🤣🤣

Not Online!!! wrote:

You realise that China is in eurasia. And you realise that the country behind is russia, which has you guessed it, Oil, Gas, Fertilisers, metals, etc. And is very willing to cooperate.
Blowing up the chinese fleet means quite literally feth all.

How you going to get the oil and gas there? Pipelines? Don't exist. Ships? Blockade, so nope. By truck? Across Siberia? There's one highway and nobody has that number of trucks, and half the year the SIberian winter takes over. Add in that much of the russian oil/gas fields are already shut down and will take a decade or more to get back up and running (with western aid) because they drilled through permafrost and had to be kept running or they freeze solid. They've massively lost capacity already.

Sure, they could trickle in a little, but it will be a tiny fraction of what China needs and they'll funnel it all to their military to keep control. And how will China pay for all that? The yuan will be worthless at that point. They don't have natural resources to trade back and their manufacturing will be toast at that point because it needs imports. The American debt China holds will be worthless, nobody pays debts to a nation they are at war with, and pre-CCP China had massive debt to the USA that's never been called in and never forgiven either that could be used to cancel them out.

I don't see Russia taking IOUs from China in such a scenario. They'd have to cede land, and if they were willing to do that, giving up claims to Taiwan and the Nine-dash line is far easier for them.

A blockade that seriously tries to starve China ends in a nuclear exchange, aka a nice hypothetical that is never going to happen.

Hell even if it didn't it would be political suicide because trying to starve 1.4 billion people is kinda a warcrime.

This is the same nonsense as when people argued about nuking Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks. Technically possible but never going to happen.

Another thing to consider is that Infantry with front-line experience might well be required in order to have infantry with the right combat experience to then go on and operate drones and other remote weapons in an effective manner.

Experienced troops on the front line is a huge thing. There's a vast difference between training and drill and actual combat situations. It's why when armies lose major bodies of experienced soldiers it makes a big impact on their performance, potential and moral.


So even if drone warfare continues to grow and remote operations and weapons become more and more commonplace; you still have to consider that you'll need people with battle experience to be able to operate and make informed, experienced choices with those weapons to best use them.




Another thing is environment. Consider that the British army suffered in the Iraq war because a lot of the equipment they originally took over wasn't made for that environment.

Infantry are more adaptable to different environments whilst machines are often far less so (unless you spend a lot of money on them to start with). So you could end up with a mechanised approach that works great in one climate, but falls apart in another. Before you even touch on logistics and support there's the raw capacity of the machinery to operate in the first place.




Also I think a big point is that armies which work well rarely have just one element that works for them. They have multiple viable elements that work in tandem. Infantry that work with drones; remote artillery; satellite intel etc.... Effective coordination and use of all the different parts produces a single force that is far more powerful and viable than investing heavily into just one.

 Tyran wrote:
A blockade that seriously tries to starve China ends in a nuclear exchange, aka a nice hypothetical that is never going to happen.

This is well outside the topic area. If you want to do a thread on China, I'm game because I just wrote a book about it (Walls of Men: A Military History of China 2500 B.C. to A.D. 2020, link in my nic). For now, let's stick to infantry.

I will note that the US with all of its technology and industry keeps losing to infantry-heavy armies. Vietnam. Iraq. Afghanistan.

All those smart bombs, all that tech, and we're 0-3.

The US has not had the political will to fight it out in the towns and villages since Korea. We'll go for the easy win, a lighting-fast campaign followed by a parade and promotions for everyone (see 1991), but a long slow grind is not something we're keen on and every country we go against knows it. Fighting an infantry war is the "easy button" against most Western armies these days, so the Queen of Battle is very much relevant.

Infantry can take up positions in complex terrain - forests, cities, etc. Said complex terrain is hard for mechanized forces in APCS/IFVs and tanks to cross, but the enemy is still there, and you have to either bypass or assault. In the 1st Chechen War, for example, Defence Minister Pavel Grachev famously said it would be foolish to run tanks into Grozny while it was held by Chechen fighters - and did it anyhow. The resulting battle, which was mostly infantry on the Chechen end of things, was famously bloody for the Russians. Dug-in infantry is notoriously hard to dislodge, especially when defending in complex terrain.

 CptJake wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:

Engineers are logistics and aren’t front line combat troops.

Clearly you've never seen 12Bs (US Army combat engineer MOS) in action or have any idea what they do. Not a logistics function at all.

Combat engineers - if squaddies pretend to be SF, SF pretend they are Combat Engineers...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Like, zero concern that they might have artillery shot at them in some photos.

- What stops a country with, not naming names, but if they had 2 billion people, spamming infantry with modern missile launchers? Would that opponent be able to simply absorb the damage of US artillery, aircraft and drones?

Well you have various bottlenecks for that. Russia is a good example. It can give basic infantry training to roughly 120-140k people at a time. Currently twice a year it seems. Reactivating reserves and the like mess with those figures somewhat, but the capacity to train a lot of people has to be created and maintained. Most countries don't have massive conscription annual events anymore as you really need that to maintain numbers. Japan is an example to do it differently with a deliberately skewed privates to other ranks with the intention that excess of NCOs and officers can train up large numbers of extras.

But lets say you get all 2 billion trained. Now you need to get them missile launchers. Now you might build 2 billion with say 4 billion warheads (two shots each). You training pipeline should ideally get everyone at least one shot, so that pushes up costs. But it also means you can steadily refresh the warheads and the occasional broken launcher. Now you have to stockpile these things all over the shop, and building the factories to build them all in say 3 months but never using said factories until invaded is expensive. You will need to guard these facilities and ensure they are climate controlled. And on and on. At this point a few tanks and artillery tubes start to look like a fair cheaper alternative that won't mean your entire workforce have to stop working and wait in trenches for the Americans, hoping they arrive before the tinned pears run out.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
If infantry are so good why did the US roll over them in both Iraq wars? Was that an aberration and if those Iraqi infantry had magically been same as US. All the javelins, training etc etc. that the outcome would have been different?

Well infantry are part of a system. Look at Russian armour loses. A lot of that is using IVFs and the like as the only fighting asset and lacking dismounts to protect it (from enemy infantry with weapons that can hurt the IFV). If you can get your fires, armour and infantry working together, you can have more successful attacks.

Infantry on their own will get steadily killed. Well disciplined, trained infantry will last longer, but still die or surrender. Support them with other arms, and have them support those other arms, and everything gets a lot tougher, with a lot of the militaries efforts going to stop that interdependent support and defeat the enemy in detail.

 Totalwar1402 wrote:
Surely a shell or missile is cheaper than a marine?

Well yes ish? Western infantry is expensive and sending him to war is moreso. For the brits by the end of Herrick it was costing us £500k to send one man for 6 months, but that was very much the posh end of deployments. A single shell is cheap. The gun and movingf it and looking after it? Maybe cheaper than a squaddie. But the 3-7 crew for said gun? That is pushing the price up.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tyran wrote:
A blockade that seriously tries to starve China ends in a nuclear exchange, aka a nice hypothetical that is never going to happen.

Hell even if it didn't it would be political suicide because trying to starve 1.4 billion people is kinda a warcrime.

This is the same nonsense as when people argued about nuking Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks. Technically possible but never going to happen.

Yes you wouldn't want to starve China, but you can stop access to resources critical to the effort of fighting a war.

And China agrees - its belt and road initiative is in some ways a desperate attempt to stop it being cut off from the resources it needs by sea/island blockade. These plans aren't to invade China, but to ensure it can't prosecute an invasion of an ally. You don't need to enforce starvations to stop the cruise missiles falling every day.

 John Prins wrote:

 Totalwar1402 wrote:


Infantry. China has two billion people. That’s a problem. If the US plan is they surrender once the fleet has been sank that’s a big assumption to make.

Once the fleet is sunk, China gets no oil and no fertilizers. China has to import both these things just to avoid starving to death. The US doesn't have to invade, they just have to blockade. No country in the world is in a position to assist China in this scenario, there are no pipelines of oil/gas running from Russia.

You're right that China won't surrender without an invasion. But infantry isn't an issue if you don't have to invade at all.

I think in a war of US vs China the economies of both countries imploding would force negotiations long before military action...

While the $ remains the worlds reserve currency the US has a remarkable level of resilience that other nations simply can't match.

That is a dangerous assumption. While more resilient than most, the US economy is far from invulnerable. Plus the American population pretty much cannot stomach any shape or form of economic pressure.

I think you would be surprised. Remember from a European point of view your economy already has a lot of pressure. The FT characterised the US (and UK) as poor countries with a lot of rich people. The infrastructure, social safety nets, health outcomes etc. are already below what many European societies would tolerate. The US can clearly take a lot more than most other western countries.

Let me rephrase it then. The segment of the American population American politicians usually care about have poor stomach for economic pressure.

Poor people in the US have it rough, but poor people in the US don't tend to vote and are systematically unrepresented and marginalized.

So it seems this topic was a trap all along.

 Tyran wrote:
That is a dangerous assumption. While more resilient than most, the US economy is far from invulnerable. Plus the American population pretty much cannot stomach any shape or form of economic pressure.

There is a difference between a "war of choice," which is how many Americans view the entanglements of the last 40 years, and an existential struggle for survival.

The US political system is under considerable strain, but it has remarkable cellular resiliency (through sovereign state governments).

China's system is still Imperial, and while that projects strength, it also carries severe (and fatal) weaknesses.

The PLA is plagued by a politically necessary division of command and duplicative recruiting. There is also the traditional conformity required by both Communism and traditional Imperial government. Finally, there is problem that China does not now and never has had a martial culture.

Consider that the United States was able to sustain a 2.1 million member all-volunteer force for two decades of combat operations despite considerable domestic opposition.

By contrast, the PLA (all branches) has 2.2 million members. After the debacle of Tienanmen Square (where units refused orders), China created a separate national police force (the Peoples Armed Police) to handle internal security. This has 1.1 million members. While China hypes the use of volunteers and recruits them, an unknown amount of their end strength is sustained by conscription.

What this means is that China - with four times the US population - is unable to sustain even a slightly larger force in peacetime than the US could sustain with volunteers in wartime. China also still uses the Mandate of Heaven framework. They've already suffered through a brutal pandemic and lockdown. Military defeat might bring about internal unrest. In all its history, the only part of China that has seen a peaceful transfer of power is Taiwan.

I can go on, but you should just buy my book.

I think the power of economic warfare, in the short term anyway; can be called into question based on what we are seeing in Russia right now.

Therefore, the Infantry still have a critical job. Hold onto land.

Commissar von Toussaint wrote:


There is a difference between a "war of choice," which is how many Americans view the entanglements of the last 40 years, and an existential struggle for survival.

I do agree that a very important factor is how the war is seen domestically, which in turn is very dependent on who is seen as the attacker and who is seen as the defendant.

Which ironically means whoever is more aggressive likely loses the domestic narrative.

I think another thing that's very important is information.

One massive change is war is when every single person involved can upload live photos, videos and details to the internet for anyone to access. This changes the nature of war in a massive number of ways.

Both on the aspects of intelligence and information on the battlefield; through to how the domestic population accepts and interprets the information and what comes to the fore and what doesn't.



Even in nations with strong control you still get a lot of information that leaks out unless you hit N Korea levels of control (and it likely only works in part because so many of the population are dirt poor and poorly educated).

Unless we get to the stage of total drone warfare infantry will probably always have a place in war.

As people have said, holding ground and objectives, enforcing the will of the occupying force in the case of an invasion. If you want to take a city, assault the place then wander off the defenders will return. And considering most invasions/assaults tend to be more expensive for the aggressors? Well that cycle will lead to attrition sooner or later.

But, massed infantry assault across an open field is unlikely to ever work again. High rate of fire weapons, especially those mounted on mobile platforms prevent that.

It also depends on the doctrine of the military in question.

Just to make a point;

Artillery was found ineffective at displacing or even killing infantry in modern warfare from WWI onward. Studies conducted during and after WWI and before WWII determined infantry is actually incredibly resilient to artillery fire. Some soldiers will die under barrage sure, but the modern barrage is also so fierce it just results in infantry holding position as opposed to the century prior where it often scared infantry into retreat. Once we stopped lining up to take turns, artillery superiority ceased to be the determinative factor in ground warfare. Whereas in the 19th century, you'll find that many battles and tactics revolved completely around positioning/displacing of artillery.

Then we started improving field fortifications.

Is a shell cheaper than a marine? Probably. But a shell can't hold ground and on its own isn't very capable of dislodging someone who is. Just look at the sheer amount of ordnance Russia has thrown around in Ukraine and how it has been insufficient to dislodge determined Ukrainian defenders (the reverse has also been true).

Artillery isn't just for killing people (equating the entire process of warfare to just 'killing' is kind of dumb). Artillery is for pinning targets. Softening them up. Creating disruptions. Artillery keeps an entrenched foe pinned with his head down, wrecks his terrain, and provides cover for advancing troops.

At the end of the day you still need to march boots on the ground and take a position and for that you need infantry.

Even at the stage of total drone warfare, you'll still need infantry. They'll just be robot infantry instead of human infantry.

 Easy E wrote:
I think the power of economic warfare, in the short term anyway; can be called into question based on what we are seeing in Russia right now.

Therefore, the Infantry still have a critical job. Hold onto land.

There's a lot to be said that modern weapons are too expensive to 'industrialize.'

Even after adjusting for inflation, modern fighter planes are magnitudes more expensive than the air superiority fighters of the Second World War. Tanks too. The idea that you can fully engage your entire industrial base behind a warfare exercise has arguably gone out the window due to the costs of modern weaponry and training.

Artillery has had some improvements over the years. I believe America is supplying shells that have some guided capabilities, they're way, way more expensive than standard rounds but are more likley to hit critical objectives when used in tandem with spotting. You can see those top down photos where fields have been dotted with missed shots, I think we're also hearing about the artillery being allocated only 2 shells or something similar.

The Ukraine war is for sure non-standard, but it's bloody interesting.

 Overread wrote:
I think another thing that's very important is information.

One massive change is war is when every single person involved can upload live photos, videos and details to the internet for anyone to access. This changes the nature of war in a massive number of ways.

In a true peer-to-peer conflict, the satellites are coming down. The submarine cables will likely survive, but I expect much of the internet will be compromised on a more or less permanent basis.