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[Aqizzar]

Zerg Rush is a bit catchier than 'overwhelming hordes of soldiers', though.

Not for anyone who's never played Starcraft, like the entire upper military establishment of any country.

If you actually look back through history, most "massed conscript" type armies failed completely.  The ones that are famous for winning, like the Soviet Union, were pretty far from being just massed scrubs.

[Cthulhu]

And the Soviets still lost millions doing it.

It's all about scalpels today, hammers aren't precise enough to do the job.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Not for anyone who's never played Starcraft, like the entire upper military establishment of any country.

If you actually look back through history, most "massed conscript" type armies failed completely.  The ones that are famous for winning, like the Soviet Union, were pretty far from being just massed scrubs.

...You might want to have a look at the Soviet Union's millitary strategy during World War II.

[Aqizzar]

Yeah, that's exactly what I'm talking about.  At the beginning of the war and through most of the middle, the Soviet Union was constantly on the defensive, because the Wehrmacht steamrolled its way right through the USSR's giant wall of conscripts.  They turned it around when they managed to reestablish their manufacturing centers safely around the Urals and started cranking out T-42s and tank-hunter planes, all excellent pieces of machinery even the Germans were impressed by, and smashed their way back West.  The USSR realized very quickly that press-gangered farmers with rifles weren't worth the cost of rounding them up.  They won through numbers yes, but good numbers, just like the how the United States approached the war.  Massive production of competent war materiel and men, not waves of crap.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

You are ignoring one very important thing. The Wehrmacht's attack on the Soviet Union cost them about 200,000 soliders. The Soviet Union, in the same amount of time, lost 2,000,000 soliders. Those kind of losses would have crippled any other country, except perhaps the United States. Had the Soviet Union been a smaller country, even slightly so, then everyone's favorite Nazis would have taken Moscow easly. In addition, they still might have taken Moscow anyway, had it not been for the crippling cold of the region. They were trying to take the place in clothes fit for summer in Germany, and they still almost made it.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

Oh good, now the thread's devolved into milwanking about wars that nobody with power (or a brain in their head) wants to fight.  Can we get some Tom Clancy quotes up in here?  Maybe some of those defense contractor infomercials with the early 90s production values?  (yeah, you know what I'm talking about)  Oh, and let's not forget the more-hooah-than-thou-ism.

But what the fuck am I talking about here. Why are we talking about hypothetical wars here? As entertaining as it sounds, all this will lead to is somebody claiming how advanced some military system is, somebody else showing the flaws in that claim in a rather ham-handed way that insults the entire country spoken of, fights break out and crap gets ugly.

That's all that needs to be said.  This thread is lost to the age-old demon of Nerds Who Think They Know Shit About War, complete with the same bogus attack lines made up in 1972 about why America left Vietnam and a bunch of crap about the French army's élan they made up themselves.  Gentlemen, I leave you to your Armchair General Wankfight.

You're missing the whole point of "sit around bullshitting while talking about something vaguely interesting". Of course nothing anyone is saying means a fucking thing; it's still entertaining to sit around bullshitting about it, [flames removed - tt]

[HAMMERMILL]

insulting everyone because they're not fucking generals or scholars

Calling people out on their bullshit isn't really insulting, because its bullshit. You don't have to be a general or a scholar to contribute something meaningful. Spouting cliches and wild fantasy and being insulted when nobody accepts the value of shit for its weight in gold? Thats silly.

It doesn't take much to have a modicum of knowledge about the topic on hand. A wikipedia-level of understanding at the least would be a good fuckin start.

[Aqizzar]

You're missing the whole point of "sit around bullshitting while talking about something vaguely interesting". Of course nothing anyone is saying means a fucking thing; it's still entertaining to sit around bullshitting about it, despite the best efforts of certain people who just sit around alternating between whining that "it'll never happen you guis, come on listen to me there's not gonna be a war you guis!" and insulting everyone because they're not fucking generals or scholars.

Hey, fuck me for thinking people were actually arguing, like so many other threads about exactly the same topics.  It's so easy to say "of course none of this is serious, lighten up" after the verbal fists start flying.

The whole thing was going in circles, and repeating verbatim a bunch of ridiculous claims about military history made by nationalistic wankers since the wars in question ended.  But hey, don't let me stop you; I'm just making my opinion known, my opinion being that while no one here has any real idea what they're talking about, some people are a lot closer to observable reality than others.

[Sir Pseudonymous]

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[MetalSlimeHunt]

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[Il Palazzo]

Hush people, calm down.

I'll just throw in my nerdy twopence now, and say that naval battle line tactics didn't die out with the decline of age of sail. The Japanese employed it to a great success at the battle of Tsushima(IIRC the name) against Russians. The battle of Jutland seen it being used as well.
As long as your main pain-bringing force is composed of ships-of-the-line(like battleships), it's a proper tactic, as it allows for maximisation of firepower. It's obsolete now, because the old style ships had been superceeded by carriers and cruise missiles.

[HAMMERMILL]

How did a discussion about a theoretical war in future Korea turn into a heated arguement about antiquated naval warfare anyways?

[Sir Pseudonymous]

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I think this is a far more accurate discription of the Internet.

The point. You are missing it entirely.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

How did a discussion about a theoretical war in future Korea turn into a heated arguement about antiquated naval warfare anyways?

Look, things happened, mistakes were made, but let's not get caught up on the details, alright? 

But speaking of naval warfare, I wonder if modern tactics will have to change if the Navy's rail gun experements work out?

And yes, I did indeed miss the point entirely.

[Phmcw]

Ok now I don't understand anyone's position on the topic.
I think I agree with aquizzar on the military aspect.
I'm also impressed by the sheer number of "shit" and "fuck" used in the last three post nevermind which post .

USSR not being prepared for war was only propaganda.
They wanted to invade Germany, and were destroyed when their invasion army was attacked by the German's invasion army.
Thus they had to use whatever troop they could raise .