Can you win a war with only light infantry in the 21st century?

solarz said:

I think people are too stuck on the Taliban/Korean War model. I'm not advocating a light infantry with inferior tech. The tech level is similar, it just happens that the light infantry side can only get personnel-grade equipment. Like my example of a Scottish militia being covertly supported by, say, France.

Light infantry has the technology to defeat tanks and attack helicopters. If they have external support, they could also have access to satellite communication: anything you can smuggle across the borders or doesn't require heavy industry to manufacture locally.

The main Achilles' Heel that I can think of is a lack of air support. Ironically, a light infantry can deal better with an enemy air supremacy than a heavy infantry. Question is, can they overcome this air supremacy?

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Ofcourse not. There is an inherent size and weight limit to infantry weapons that limit their hit range and destructive power, mechanized platforms will always have higher limits. Detection ranges exceed hit ranges across all platforms and infantry. The infantry will always be touched before they can touch (touch = getting the crap beat out of them).

And if infantry touching air forces is already extremely limited, infantry touching naval forces is even more so.

A lot of high tech requires installations and an industrial base for running and replenishing it, once the initial war starts the infantry side has limited means to destroy these on the opposing side while the opposing side can easily take them all out on the infantry side.

End of story.

---------- Post added at 10:42 AM ---------- Previous post was at 10:31 AM ----------

solarz said:

I disagree, light infantry certainly can win wars against even air supremacy. Look at Vietnam, for example. That's actually a good analogy of my scenario: the Northern Vietnamese were supplied in equipment and even manpower from USSR and China.

How ever, that was in the 1970's. Has technological progress since then increased or decreased the odds of the light infantry?

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So the infantry force relied on industrial/tech support it could not protect, it was foreign support and the nature of that protected it. Take that away and the infantry force has no tech. You already know and stated all the reasons why an infantry only force has no chance against a mechanized enemy, I don't know why you're still in denial about it.

OK, an infantry force with state of the art equipment and no air force. Ain't that a kind of mafia like "Los Zetas"? Sure, you can call air strikes on the mafia, but as long as they don't decide to organize for field battle it's defined as organized crime and hard to eradicate with that level of technology and training.
From a German military point of view 60% of the army are defined as light units, various jägers (with APC), and 40% as heavy units of panzer(MBT) and panzergrenadier(with tracked APC) which are less versatility for urban combat and difficult terrain crossing. These are protected by a screen of very good fighters, the Eurofighter (it took Germany quite long to get good fighters).

Kurt said:

OK, an infantry force with state of the art equipment and no air force. Ain't that a kind of mafia like "Los Zetas"? Sure, you can call air strikes on the mafia, but as long as they don't decide to organize for field battle it's defined as organized crime and hard to eradicate with that level of technology and training.
From a German military point of view 60% of the army are defined as light units, various jägers (with APC), and 40% as heavy units of panzer(MBT) and panzergrenadier(with tracked APC) which are less versatility for urban combat and difficult terrain crossing. These are protected by a screen of very good fighters, the Eurofighter (it took Germany quite long to get good fighters).

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The more state-of-the-art your infantry gets, the more dependent on complex, centralized AND mechanized supply line it'd be, and that's where the sophisticated enemy can exploit and nail you on the wall - hit the supply line, fuel depots (no fuel, no transports), production facilities, economic sanctions on foreign sources (if this doesn't shut down everything it'd leave only the black market, and they can hardly provide in bulk even at highly marked-up price)...that's why the likes of Taliban and AQ operates as cells and small bands instead of anything resemble of organized military.

solarz said:

I disagree, light infantry certainly can win wars against even air supremacy. Look at Vietnam, for example. That's actually a good analogy of my scenario: the Northern Vietnamese were supplied in equipment and even manpower from USSR and China.

How ever, that was in the 1970's. Has technological progress since then increased or decreased the odds of the light infantry?

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No, Vietnam did not win the war. The US gave up at the end. Vietnam lost almost all battles. The US gave up because they could not justify the casualty, which was overwhelmingly lower than that suffered by the Vietnam. So actual fighting-wise, Vietnam lost, hands-down.

I believe the Korean war is a classic case of the use of light infantry. China used the light infantry to its fullest potential and understood that it could not win the war with it. So they upgraded their heavy weaponry and moved away from the light infantry style in the end. And let's face it, it was the later half of the war, i.e. the stalemate, that forced everyone involved to the table. Without all the combined arm that PVA had to hold their positions, China would be in no position to negotiate with the UN. The early part of the war can be misleading. Most of the time, it was one side underestimating the other side, leading to massive retreat. The early part of the war was simply both sides getting to know their opponent better. many people seem to fixate on the part where PVA pushed the US all the way from Yalu to the sea and managed to capture Soul, mostly with its light infantry. However, let's not forget that the US fought back and pushed the PVA back north of the 38th. So the Chinese light infantry was still no match to the combined forces of the UN. It was the later half of the war that truly defines the war, i.e. both sides dug down and fought a nasty stationary war that ultimately defined the current geopolitical environment in East Asia. By that time, PVA was also a combined force supported by an air force, albeit small one, and a kick-a$$ artillery corp. And it was this combined force that was able to actually match the UN punch for punch and forced the cease-fire. Light infantry was NOT a factor at this time.

No, Vietnam did not win the war. The US gave up at the end. Vietnam lost almost all battles. The US gave up because they could not justify the casualty,

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Thus North Vietnam won the war because it achieved ALL it's objectives at the end, the US achieved NONE.

France won the 100 years war, even though it lost most battles vs the english, because at the end, england had lost ALL it's french territories and france had consolidated all of it's territories.

Igor said:

Thus North Vietnam won the war because it achieved ALL it's objectives at the end, the US achieved NONE.

France won the 100 years war, even though it lost most battles vs the english, because at the end, england had lost ALL it's french territories and france had consolidated all of it's territories.

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Agreed.

Vietnam won the war by outlasting the US. The US punched hard, but couldn't take as hard a hit in return. Vietnam paid for its victory with horrendous casualties, but that is to be expected going up against the kind of firepower that the US can deploy.

Igor said:

Thus North Vietnam won the war because it achieved ALL it's objectives at the end, the US achieved NONE.

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No, we are discussing this topic from a purely military standpoint. Vietnam "won" the war politically. They did not outlast the US because the US had way more resources than Vietnam could dream for at the end of the war. The US pulled out because of the political pressure back home. If the American public was fully behind the US troops like how the Chinese people were behind the PVA in the Korean War, the US would have won the war. Since it would be almost impossible to speculate the political environment a nation could be in, we should leave the political side of things alone and discuss this issue from a purely military standpoint.

I understand that politics is an integral part of any military operation. However, it is too unpredictable. For instance, the same situation that caused the American to lose the Vietnam war could happen to the Vietnamese and cause the Viet-Con to completely disintegrate. A similar situation happened to China in WWII. China was the one with only the light infantry. One would expect them to fight hard and come up with all these nifty tactics to defeat the Japanese and outlast the Japanese. Yet, at the beginning of the war, Japanese could advance almost unimpeded. Why? not because the Chinese couldn't fight and couldn't come up with strategies to beat the Japanese. They did not even try! It was because of politics. And unlike the Vietnam war where the stronger US was on the wrong side of the political effects, this time the weaker China, the one with the light infantry, was on the wrong side of the political effect. So the political effect is too unpredictable and should not be factored into our discussion.

So from a pure military standpoint, no light infantry has ever beaten a more advanced, combined force.

Igor said:

France won the 100 years war, even though it lost most battles vs the english, because at the end, england had lost ALL it's french territories and france had consolidated all of it's territories.

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This is different because France and UK were pretty much on an equal footing. We are discussing whether a light infantry can defeat an advanced force.

Yup, Its totally delusional to think the NVA and the Viet Cong won a military victory over the USA.

bladerunner said:

Yup, Its totally delusional to think the NVA and the Viet Cong won a military victory over the USA.

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Yeah, but what causes the deaths of 58,000+ US troops and hundreds of thousands of South Vietnamese troops, certainly can't be the "liberal media" that are the cause. All I know is one side couldn't stand the bleeding therefore left the fight before it gets more.

MwRYum said:

If you gonna quote Vietnam...don't you know how shackled the US military was by politics? And Vietnam didn't win by infantry alone - China provided safe haven to key Vietnamese war efforts, which Vietnam kinda forgot during the Sino-Vietnam War and they paid for it.

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The fact is Vietnam won against China in Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979.