Originally Posted by
Rotarymagic
http:///forum/post/2784099
In World War 1, they lost more people than many small countries have for their entire population!
**WWI-So did Germany, France, and Austria. And depending what small countries you’re talking about, so did Italy, Britain, Romania, and Turkish Empire. Tactics of the time were still mass on mass as tanks were still in their infancy. We weren’t exempt. Battle of Belleau Wood we launched wave after wave of Marines straight into German machine gun fire. And don’t forget, a huge number of deaths were due to disease, famine, and POW deaths.
In World War 2 alone, they lost more people than ALL other sides combined throughout the war.
**WWII-Russia had to defend an entire front by themselves against the best military of the time. Okay, not a shining moment for the Ruskies. They were caught off-guard by a German Blitzkrieg and were decimated and demoralized before fighting back with drastic measures. The Russians were poorly trained and lacked any initiative due to Stalin’s purging of the officer corps. It wasn’t until 1943 when they ditched the mass frontal assaults and adopted maneuver warfare. And with both wars, Russia and a much larger number of troops committed than any other nation.
Russia is not a good country to make comparison because they have a track record for senseless sacrifice.
Again, all countries were using the same tactics until mid WWII.
So how can you compare Russian military of WWI and WWII with their military of the '80's? Pre WWI, we weren’t a formidable military force either. It took lessons learned in WWII to put us, as well as the Russians, on the top.
The easiest way to stop them in the mountains is a seige because they'll eventually die of starvation and thirst especially in the desert.
**A siege? You can't have a siege if you can't surround your objective. I'm referring to Pakistan reluctance to allow us to occupy the mountains within their border. They're shooting at us, if you haven’t heard!!! Far too many Pakistani's are sympathetic to Al Qaeda. Hell, CNN did a poll a while back and found 46% of Pakastani's approve of Bin Laden. And if you piss off the Pakistani's, they'll shut us off. We can't get to Afghanistan without going through Pakistan. We can’t even secure our borders on somewhat level terrain here at home. How do you think we’d do trying to contain an entire mountain range that spans two countries? That’s roughly 500 square miles!
Al Qaeda is hiding in the Waziristan region of Pakistan. This is an area that is not and has never been controlled by the government in Islamabad. They’re controlled by local tribes sympathetic to Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. After 9/11 the Pakistani government sent their army to attack the area at our urging and lost every time. No motivation, of course, but it just shows who's in control of that area. You can’t win if you can’t get the help of the locals. We’ve seen that in Iraq.
fuel bombs work nicely too at keeping the oxygen levels at very low levels too.
** I’m assuming you were joking about using fuel bombs to keep oxygen levels low. Hunredes of miles of interconnecting tunnels and entrances, you’re not going to suck up all that oxygen. Once the bombs explode, air quickly replaces the vacuum left by the blast. We're using thermobaric weapons in Afghanistan already. Problem is you can't deliver the munitions to every cave in those mountains. You have civilians living in those caves as well so you just can't bomb every cave entrance indiscriminately.
