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

MwRYum

MwRYum

Major
Katiusha said:
The fact is Vietnam won against China in Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979.
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For one, both side declared they are the victors...Chinese aim to give Vietnam a border war (and by Chinese account, retrieved all the stuff they gave Vietnam as aid during the Vietnam War) and the border disputes; Vietnam was of course claimed they beat back yet another invasion.

But in the long run, the Sino-Vietnamese War and the subsequent conflicts into the 80s bleed the Vietnam bad in terms of economy and men (there's a reason why at a time Vietnam had to export brides), then when the USSR (Vietnam's backer) folded both sides finally stopped fighting.

Then when you look at the areas they conducted battles in and the battle orders, it was a predominantly infantry war due to the very difficult terrain.
 
F

Franticfrank

New Member
Interesting discussion. What about the Soviet experience against the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the '80s? The might of a conventional army, well equipped with armour and aircover. They lost out ot light infantry equipped mainly with Kalashnikovs, RPGs and MANPADs.
 
vesicles

vesicles

Colonel
Katiusha said:
The fact is Vietnam won against China in Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979.
Click to expand...

This is how it looks when people play word games. China's objective was to "teach Vietnam a lesson", similar to what they did in 1962 in the Sino-Indian border conflict. And they did exactly that. They advanced into Vietnam and captured many Vietnamese cities and pulled back voluntarily when they thought they had achieved their goals. I don't think you can say that Vietnam "won" since they didn't beat the Chinese on the battlefield.

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---------- Post added at 12:24 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:18 PM ----------
Franticfrank said:
Interesting discussion. What about the Soviet experience against the Mujahideen in Afghanistan in the '80s? The might of a conventional army, well equipped with armour and aircover. They lost out ot light infantry equipped mainly with Kalashnikovs, RPGs and MANPADs.
Click to expand...

This is a similar case as the Vietnam War. It was the politics that influenced the outcome of the war. Plus, we are discussing this issue from a purely military standpoint. I don't think Soviets was ever actually defeated on the battlefield. Further, China actually supported Afghan Mujahidin in the conflict, as the US did. See the following site. Please go to the bottom of the page and the section "Aftermath".

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This may not be an appropriate example, but you can never completely eliminate ants in your backyard, no matter what technique you use. They always figure out a way to come back. Can you say that ants have defeated human? That's what happened in Vietnam and what happened in Afghanistan.
 
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vesicles

vesicles

Colonel
I think we might have mixed up 2 different concepts here.
1) A light infantry can militarily defeated an advanced combined force
2) a nation can successfully use it's light infantry to achieve its political goals

I think #1 should be wrong as absolutely no evidence has shown that a light infantry can gain any meaningful advantage on the battlefield against an advanced enemy. Let's face it. If a light infantry can be successful, why do nations spend so much money and resources in an attempt to develop advanced weapons? If a light infantry can ve successful, the driving force for advanced weapoan development would not be as ovrwhleming. In other words, advanced weapon development would have been considered as wasteful. We would still be using the same weapons used in the early 1900's. Yet, each nation dedicates huge amount of resources to develop weapons as advanced s they can afford, indicating that it is absolutely vital to have a force as advanced as possible.

However, #2 is definitely feasible. A highly mobile ligt infantry force can maneuver quickly and inflict enough damage to frustrate the enemy. When enough casualties have been accumulated, the political pressure back home would feasibly force the more advanced force to either give up or scale back its operations. Thus, although the light infantry cannot possibly defeat its more advanced enemy, it can still achieve its political goals by "hanging in there". So a light infantry is still useful politically even though it's inferior militarily.
 
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solarz

solarz

Brigadier
vesicles said:
I think we might have mixed up 2 different concepts here.
1) A light infantry can militarily defeated an advanced combined force
2) a nation can successfully use it's light infantry to achieve its political goals

I think #1 should be wrong as absolutely no evidence has shown that a light infantry can gain any meaningful advantage on the battlefield against an advanced enemy. Let's face it. If a light infantry can be successful, why do nations spend so much money and resources in an attempt to develop advanced weapons? If a light infantry can ve successful, the driving force for advanced weapoan development would not be as ovrwhleming. In other words, advanced weapon development would have been considered as wasteful. We would still be using the same weapons used in the early 1900's. Yet, each nation dedicates huge amount of resources to develop weapons as advanced s they can afford, indicating that it is absolutely vital to have a force as advanced as possible.

However, #2 is definitely feasible. A highly mobile ligt infantry force can maneuver quickly and inflict enough damage to frustrate the enemy. When enough casualties have been accumulated, the political pressure back home would feasibly force the more advanced force to either give up or scale back its operations. Thus, although the light infantry cannot possibly defeat its more advanced enemy, it can still achieve its political goals by "hanging in there". So a light infantry is still useful politically even though it's inferior militarily.
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Ah, but you're not taking into account the availability of resources, whether in material or in manpower. If the side with the light infantry is capable of soaking more casualties than the more advanced side, there will come a point where the more advanced side will no longer be able to absorb the losses. In a limited war scenario, the political will will expire long before the resources do. In a total war scenario, however, politics would no longer matter.
 
bajingan

bajingan

Senior Member
If recent history is to be referenced combined arms has a bad track record against light infantry, they always lost the war, obviously in battle they won most of the engagements due to their superior firepower, but in the long term they always lost the war and had to be withdrawn, recent examples: US combined arms vs north vietnamese light infantry, soviet combined arms vs mujahideen/taliban light infantry, the inevitable US/NATO defeat in afghanistan against taliban light infantry (its just a matter of time before US withdraw and kabul will be back in taliban hands) the only success the US combined arms had was in iraq and that is just a very limited success to say the least

all of this is due to the glaring weaknesses of combined arms, they simply dont have the staying power, the financial and human burden is too detrimental to the country's economy and political system, the enemies can simply just absorb the casualties and "wait them up" especially if they dont have the support of the local population. and in afghanistan what happened recently is that the taliban are able to inflintrate the afghan army and inflict casualties on NATO troops, further deteriorating the relationship and trust between coalition forces and afghan army ready to be exploited further by the taliban, if i am not wrong this was never happened to the south vietnamese army There is no such thing as defeating groups who can always recruit more members to fight the invaders.
 
bajingan

bajingan

Senior Member
vesicles said:
This is how it looks when people play word games. China's objective was to "teach Vietnam a lesson", similar to what they did in 1962 in the Sino-Indian border conflict. And they did exactly that. They advanced into Vietnam and captured many Vietnamese cities and pulled back voluntarily when they thought they had achieved their goals. I don't think you can say that Vietnam "won" since they didn't beat the Chinese on the battlefield.

This is a similar case as the Vietnam War. It was the politics that influenced the outcome of the war. Plus, we are discussing this issue from a purely military standpoint. I don't think Soviets was ever actually defeated on the battlefield. Further, China actually supported Afghan Mujahidin in the conflict, as the US did. See the following site. Please go to the bottom of the page and the section "Aftermath".

This may not be an appropriate example, but you can never completely eliminate ants in your backyard, no matter what technique you use. They always figure out a way to come back. Can you say that ants have defeated human? That's what happened in Vietnam and what happened in Afghanistan.
Click to expand...

To be honest if human failed in its objective to eliminate the enemy ants in the backyard then the ants actually can claim victory against human by being able to survive and being able to continue to annoy humans.

Same thing in afghanistan and vietnam, a 500 billion dollar fighting force can get kicked out by goat herders and farmers
 
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rhino123

rhino123

Pencil Pusher
VIP Professional
bajingan said:
If recent history is to be referenced combined arms has a bad track record against light infantry, they always lost the war, obviously in battle they won most of the engagements due to their superior firepower, but in the long term they always lost the war and had to be withdrawn, recent examples: US combined arms vs north vietnamese light infantry, soviet combined arms vs mujahideen/taliban light infantry, the inevitable US/NATO defeat in afghanistan against taliban light infantry (its just a matter of time before US withdraw and kabul will be back in taliban hands) the only success the US combined arms had was in iraq and that is just a very limited success to say the least

all of this is due to the glaring weaknesses of combined arms, they simply dont have the staying power, the financial and human burden is too detrimental to the country's economy and political system, the enemies can simply just absorb the casualties and "wait them up" especially if they dont have the support of the local population. and in afghanistan what happened recently is that the taliban are able to inflintrate the afghan army and inflict casualties on NATO troops, further deteriorating the relationship and trust between coalition forces and afghan army ready to be exploited further by the taliban, if i am not wrong this was never happened to the south vietnamese army There is no such thing as defeating groups who can always recruit more members to fight the invaders.
Click to expand...

bajingan said:
To be honest if human failed in its objective to eliminate the enemy ants in the backyard then the ants actually can claim victory against human by being able to survive and being able to continue to annoy humans.

Same thing in afghanistan and vietnam, a 500 billion dollar fighting force can get kicked out by goat herders and farmers
Click to expand...

I would respectfully disagreed with most of what you have stated. The examples you have given all lead to US and Russia far away from their power base (which might be their home country).

If a light infantry force was to be sent into US as an invasion force, you can be sure that they will be wiped out totally within hours with the combined arms of the US military.

One of the reason for the ultimate victory of those mentioned force was not because they are light infantry or whatever, but because of the 'people'. Like what the Chinese had always mentioned throughout history, "People is a force that is the strongest."

If North Vietnam had combined arms at that time, don't you think victory will come much faster? Same goes to Korean war, etc, etc.
 
bajingan

bajingan

Senior Member
rhino123 said:
I would respectfully disagreed with most of what you have stated. The examples you have given all lead to US and Russia far away from their power base (which might be their home country).

If a light infantry force was to be sent into US as an invasion force, you can be sure that they will be wiped out totally within hours with the combined arms of the US military.

One of the reason for the ultimate victory of those mentioned force was not because they are light infantry or whatever, but because of the 'people'. Like what the Chinese had always mentioned throughout history, "People is a force that is the strongest."

If North Vietnam had combined arms at that time, don't you think victory will come much faster? Same goes to Korean war, etc, etc.
Click to expand...

Sorry i thought we were talking in the context of an invading combined arms against a defending lightly armed opposition, my bad
 
solarz

solarz

Brigadier
bajingan said:
To be honest if human failed in its objective to eliminate the enemy ants in the backyard then the ants actually can claim victory against human by being able to survive and being able to continue to annoy humans.

Same thing in afghanistan and vietnam, a 500 billion dollar fighting force can get kicked out by goat herders and farmers
Click to expand...

Well the original intent of my post was to explore whether we currently have military technology that would allow a light infantry force to overcome an army with armor, artillery, air, and mechanized support.

Specifically, I was wondering about tactical engagements. Can a light infantry force overrun a more advanced army's fortified position? What is the numerical superiority needed for this to occur?
 
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