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

Hey Solarz, my man, you are indeed persistent!

I think you confuse between a tactical advantage vs. a strategic advantage. Tactically, it is absolutely possible for a light infantry to defeat its foe with advanced combined forces in a battle. It depends on battle tactics that center around deception, maneuver, etc. However, a war is won with resources, not battle tactics. Thus. the side with more resources will ALWAYS win the war. History is littered with examples. In WWII, Romel was definitely the most brilliant tactician. If you look at the # of battles each side won, I can almost assure you that Romel won majority of them. he lost in North Africa because of lack of supply. So the key in any war is resources, resources, resources. The side that get hold of resources will win, no exception. And in the case of light infantry vs. combined forces, it is almost a guaranty that the advanced forces will eventually gain the control of the resources.

Well, very informative thread

vesicles said:

Hey Solarz, my man, you are indeed persistent!

I think you confuse between a tactical advantage vs. a strategic advantage. Tactically, it is absolutely possible for a light infantry to defeat its foe with advanced combined forces in a battle. It depends on battle tactics that center around deception, maneuver, etc. However, a war is won with resources, not battle tactics. Thus. the side with more resources will ALWAYS win the war. History is littered with examples. In WWII, Romel was definitely the most brilliant tactician. If you look at the # of battles each side won, I can almost assure you that Romel won majority of them. he lost in North Africa because of lack of supply. So the key in any war is resources, resources, resources. The side that get hold of resources will win, no exception. And in the case of light infantry vs. combined forces, it is almost a guaranty that the advanced forces will eventually gain the control of the resources.

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I like your analyse.
Now pls look back at Vietnam war, one of the war where mostly light infantry North Vietnam army won the war. What military mistakes did the US make?
And the case in Korean war, isn't it the combined force (UN) vs light infantry force (Chinese)? Why could the Chinese push UN back?

313230 said:

Well, very informative thread


I like your analyse.
Now pls look back at Vietnam war, one of the war where mostly light infantry North Vietnam army won the war. What military mistakes did the US make?
And the case in Korean war, isn't it the combined force (UN) vs light infantry force (Chinese)? Why could the Chinese push UN back?

Click to expand...

We had discussed this in painful length before in this exact thread. for detail, please go back to earlier posts. so briefly, In the Korean War, the Chinese started out as a light infantry, but eventually developed itself into a kind of combined force with extensive heavy artillery support. Indeed, it was this heavy artillery that helped the Chinese hold their ground at the end of the war. It was almost entirely stationary trench style fighting at the end. If China still had the light infantry they had at the beginning, there would be no way that they could hold their position and force the UN to the negotiating table. The success that the Chinese enjoyed at the beginning was based on surprise and underestimation by the UN. Once the UN recovered, the light infantry tactics was no longer successful. This was evident in the fight for Seoul. The Chinese lost it after taking it from the UN. I believe that Chinese leadership understood that the light infantry could not carry them throughout the war. S they made the painful decision to upgrade. It was a painful decision because China was extremely poor at the time. They had to divert so much resources to do this, but they knew they had to become a combined force in order to have to chance to win the war.

As to Vietnam war, the Americans were winning the war. They pulled out because they could no longer achieve their political objective while sustaining the level of casualty that was acceptable to them. The Vietnam war is a good example of how the civilian govn't should not handicap the military.

vesicles said:

Hey Solarz, my man, you are indeed persistent!


I think you confuse between a tactical advantage vs. a strategic advantage. Tactically, it is absolutely possible for a light infantry to defeat its foe with advanced combined forces in a battle. It depends on battle tactics that center around deception, maneuver, etc. However, a war is won with resources, not battle tactics. Thus. the side with more resources will ALWAYS win the war. History is littered with examples. In WWII, Romel was definitely the most brilliant tactician. If you look at the # of battles each side won, I can almost assure you that Romel won majority of them. he lost in North Africa because of lack of supply. So the key in any war is resources, resources, resources. The side that get hold of resources will win, no exception. And in the case of light infantry vs. combined forces, it is almost a guaranty that the advanced forces will eventually gain the control of the resources.

Click to expand...

Hey Vesicles, you are indeed patient! I can't agree with you more.

313230 said:

Now pls look back at Vietnam war, one of the war where mostly light infantry North Vietnam army won the war. What military mistakes did the US make?
And the case in Korean war, isn't it the combined force (UN) vs light infantry force (Chinese)? Why could the Chinese push UN back?

Click to expand...

To add to Vesicles' cliff-notes-of-forum-posts reply, in both Vietnam and Korea (as well as Afghanistan vs the Soviets) the mainly infantry side had:
- Logistical, military, intelligence... all sorts of support from other countries which were crucial
- Logistical, intelligence, and morale support from a significant portion of the population
- The benefit of terrain with large swaths of mountains, jungles, and dense cities
- The limited technological advantage of their combined arms opponents compared to today (no or less advanced satellites, UAVs, precision weapons, fortifications such as Baghdad 'Green zone' or Israeli-Gaza border, heavier armored vehicles vs infantry weapons, electronic warfare, non-lethal warfare, other psy-ops gadgets and techniques for minimizing the population's support for the infantry side...)
Whew!

PanAsian said:

To add to Vesicles' cliff-notes-of-forum-posts reply, in both Vietnam and Korea (as well as Afghanistan vs the Soviets) the mainly infantry side had:
- Logistical, military, intelligence... all sorts of support from other countries which were crucial
- Logistical, intelligence, and morale support from a significant portion of the population
- The benefit of terrain with large swaths of mountains, jungles, and dense cities
- The limited technological advantage of their combined arms opponents compared to today (no or less advanced satellites, UAVs, precision weapons, fortifications such as Baghdad 'Green zone' or Israeli-Gaza border, heavier armored vehicles vs infantry weapons, electronic warfare, non-lethal warfare, other psy-ops gadgets and techniques for minimizing the population's support for the infantry side...)
Whew!

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The US pulled out of Vietnam because it was politically barred from invading North Vietnam. Had they done that and cut off the harbor at Haiphong/seized Hanoi, the war would have been over very quickly. They could have done that at any moment in the war.

t_co said:

The US pulled out of Vietnam because it was politically barred from invading North Vietnam. Had they done that and cut off the harbor at Haiphong/seized Hanoi, the war would have been over very quickly. They could have done that at any moment in the war.

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This is fantasy. In 1975 South Vietnam was defeated because its soldiers didn't want to fight for the dictatorship. Some ten years before the dropping of South Vietnamese commando's north of the 17th parallel was halted because every infiltration was immediately defeated. The US just couldn't have held the North because the war would have continued until they were gone.
Remember that the US government expected in 1955 that in the elections promised for 1956 in the Geneva Agreement of 1954 some 90% of the South Vietnamese would vote for reunification under the North Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh and against the South Vietnamese dictator Ngo Dinh Diem. That's why there were no elections in 1956.

delft said:

This is fantasy. In 1975 South Vietnam was defeated because its soldiers didn't want to fight for the dictatorship. Some ten years before the dropping of South Vietnamese commando's north of the 17th parallel was halted because every infiltration was immediately defeated. The US just couldn't have held the North because the war would have continued until they were gone.
Remember that the US government expected in 1955 that in the elections promised for 1956 in the Geneva Agreement of 1954 some 90% of the South Vietnamese would vote for reunification under the North Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh and against the South Vietnamese dictator Ngo Dinh Diem. That's why there were no elections in 1956.

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Fair enough. The issue we're discussing, though, is the military side of things. At the higher political level, I completely agree--the US was decisively beaten. But at the operational level, had the United States pushed north with airborne/mechanized columns and amphibious assaults (supported by its 2 supercarriers in the area) it could have completely cut North Vietnam off from Chinese and Russian resupply, which accounted for nearly 65% of the NVA's ammunition and 90% of the NVA's fuel.

The thing is, though, Korea had taught the Americans that doing that would likely provoke a Chinese (or even Soviet) intervention, which is something the Americans did not want.

I think there are several discussion on what "light" infantry is.

Is it, the Mujahideen/Vietcong with AK47s, a gernade here and there, shoulder mounted AT weapons, manpacks...

or, NVA, with AK47s, motars, GPMGs, light armor, limited tactical air and fire support.

Or a US-Rangers/SAS/LRDC/Greenberrets/spetznats or similar with laser guided stand off munitions, close air support, the latest and the greatest gear?

Or, a motorized division with mainly wheeled transport?

What I am willing to conclude is that I doubt any light infantry unit can do what a heavy armored division with organic SPG can do in conquest.

t_co said:

Fair enough. The issue we're discussing, though, is the military side of things. At the higher political level, I completely agree--the US was decisively beaten. But at the operational level, had the United States pushed north with airborne/mechanized columns and amphibious assaults (supported by its 2 supercarriers in the area) it could have completely cut North Vietnam off from Chinese and Russian resupply, which accounted for nearly 65% of the NVA's ammunition and 90% of the NVA's fuel.

The thing is, though, Korea had taught the Americans that doing that would likely provoke a Chinese (or even Soviet) intervention, which is something the Americans did not want.

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Thats fantasy as well, The US dropped more bombs on North Vietnam than the whole of WW2; what could 2 super carrier do to the Ho Chi Men trail that the Stratigic bomber command cannot? especially, when the HCM trail is in Burma, - 100 KM inland, staying safe from any silkworms the Vietnamese may have, your combat air support will have to fly 200 km one way, through hostile airspace with a possibility of SAM and MIGs.

//edit
Don't believe in the classical interpretation of the vietnam war by mainstream media and story spinners. If the USA feared Soviet intervention, there would not have been a cuban crisis. If US feared an all out war with the SU, the USA would not have supported China nuclearly during the sino-soviet crisis. The fact is simple that the US was not prepared for the vietnam war and did not have the determination to win it at the price that it was costing.