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

solarz said:

Is it possible to have an army equipped only with small arms and civilian-grade communication equipment to win a war against a modern, top-tier, combined arms army? I'm not talking about dragging out an insurgency until the more powerful army calls it quits, but actually winning battles through tactics, organization, and yes, numbers.

Let's assume that the infantry army can get access to top-tier small arms, but small arms only. No tanks, no aircraft. Civilian grade vehicles are available. Assume a landlocked battleground and navies are irrelevant.

What kind of equipment would make this scenario possible? What kind of tactics? What would be the numerical advantage necessary?

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You don't need to look that far to find your answer: Libya, 2011.

Before the UN Resolution No.1973 was passed and implemented, Qaddafi's armed forces, while not perfectly fit the notion of "modern, top-tier, combined arms army", have already beaten the rebels all the way back to Benghazi; if the Resolution have passed a week later, he'd have more than enough time flatten the city, kill every rebels and just about to cleanup their bloody remains.

If given a more organized army with better equipment and preparation, this would be done deal a month or more faster.

Another example would be the Taliban in Afghanistan.

It's the vast disparity in terms of resources, as well as the ability of denying the opposition from theirs - just communication alone, civilian-grade wireless networks can easily be jammed/hacked by the military, landlines comm network relies on exchanges and hubs that can be surgically removed, civilian GPS service can be turned off (unless the receivers can receive Beidou or GLONASS signals too)...

Not to mention such an army would have no hope to do a stand-up fight - unless their marshaling point is within 1 km from their enemy, the other side would devastate them with heavy artillery, if not wipe them out it'd leave them invalid as a fighting force even before the fight could begin.

Futhermore looking at WW2 in a slightly different manner, but where one had well trained but lightly armed units, eg Hitlers airbourne division took such a mauling at Crete, it was never used again in the same manner. While the British airbourne division got clobbered at Arnhem

MwRYum said:

You don't need to look that far to find your answer: Libya, 2011.

Before the UN Resolution 1973 was passed and implemented, Qaddafi's armed forces, while not perfectly fit the notion of "modern, top-tier, combined arms army", have already beaten the rebels all the way back to Benghazi; if the Resolution have passed a week later, he'd have more than enough time flatten the city, kill every rebels and just about to cleanup their bloody remains.

If given a more organized army with better equipment and preparation, this would be done deal a month or more faster.

Another example would be the Taliban in Afghanistan.

It's the vast disparity in terms of resources, as well as the ability of denying the opposition from theirs - just communication alone, civilian-grade wireless networks can easily be jammed/hacked by the military, landlines comm network relies on exchanges and hubs that can be surgically removed, civilian GPS service can be turned off (unless the receivers can receive Beidou or GLONASS signals too)...

Not to mention such an army would have no hope to do a stand-up fight - unless their marshaling point is within 1 km from their enemy, the other side would devastate them with heavy artillery, if not wipe them out it'd leave them invalid as a fighting force even before the fight could begin.

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I thought of these when I came up with the thread, and I wanted something different. The Libyan rebels' organization was/is atrocious. The Talibans are only marginally better, and have access only to low-tier RPGs that can't pose a threat to MBTs.

The Hezbollah defense against the Israeli invasion is a better example, but even then they were simply bogging down the IDF, not winning any grounds.

Are there ways to equip an army with a poor or non-existent industrial base so that it can defeat a well-equipped but numerically inferior army?

solarz said:

I thought of these when I came up with the thread, and I wanted something different. The Libyan rebels' organization was/is atrocious. The Talibans are only marginally better, and have access only to low-tier RPGs that can't pose a threat to MBTs.

The Hezbollah defense against the Israeli invasion is a better example, but even then they were simply bogging down the IDF, not winning any grounds.

Are there ways to equip an army with a poor or non-existent industrial base so that it can defeat a well-equipped but numerically inferior army?

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You still don't get it, the disparity in technological and resources is so great that the only way is to thump-up one side and/or dumb-down the other side to make it a far less hopeless scenario, especially if you're talking about not a guerrilla warfare type nor attrition types, but standard warfare...see, from American Civil War onwards the common sense is that technological superiority can largely dictates the outcome.

And a technological superior, alas numerically inferior, army would use its technological superiority to the fullest, namely in the superiority in range and firepower, to hurt its technologically inferior opposition; have access to superior realtime intel to hurt the enemy at its weakest; the use of night or low-light condition as cover for attack - of course both sides would do the same but the technologically superior side would have the upper hand, such as NVG gear for the least.

The only scenario that the technological side could win is to deny the mobility and technological superiority (something like an EMP device, for example), and human wave warfare - yes, I'm talking about banzai charge.

But, won a battle doesn't translate into winning a war, no? So the following have to be considered:

1. Does this offensive effected on the most critical sector?
2. Is there still enough men, as well as competent officers and NCOs left in the army to lead the rank and file in other operations/campaigns?
3. Could the loss in such offensive be relatively easy to replace?

So it's not so much about how to equip, but how to "spend" the men.

MwRYum said:

You still don't get it, the disparity in technological and resources is so great that the only way is to thump-up one side and/or dumb-down the other side to make it a far less hopeless scenario, especially if you're talking about not a guerrilla warfare type nor attrition types, but standard warfare...see, from American Civil War onwards the common sense is that technological superiority can largely dictates the outcome.

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Really? What about the Korean War?

And a technological superior, alas numerically inferior, army would use its technological superiority to the fullest, namely in the superiority in range and firepower, to hurt its technologically inferior opposition; have access to superior realtime intel to hurt the enemy at its weakest; the use of night or low-light condition as cover for attack - of course both sides would do the same but the technologically superior side would have the upper hand, such as NVG gear for the least.

The only scenario that the technological side could win is to deny the mobility and technological superiority (something like an EMP device, for example), and human wave warfare - yes, I'm talking about banzai charge.

But, won a battle doesn't translate into winning a war, no? So the following have to be considered:

1. Does this offensive effected on the most critical sector?
2. Is there still enough men, as well as competent officers and NCOs left in the army to lead the rank and file in other operations/campaigns?
3. Could the loss in such offensive be relatively easy to replace?

So it's not so much about how to equip, but how to "spend" the men.

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Come on.

Take the Taliban or Iraq insurgents for example. Every time they engage US forces, even regular patrols, they inevitably suffer huge casualties with the US side taking little to no casualties. Are you telling me you can't come up with an infantry army who can perform better than that?

The main advantages of a combined-arms army is: surveillance/recon, communication, and logistics/reinforcements. These are definitely huge advantages, so the question is, are there ways for an infantry army to minimize the impact of those advantages?

Here's Bevin Alexander, a military historian who served in the Korean war, and has a lot of respect for the various guerilla struggles in Asia irrelevant of politics, he's a good source to study for this sort of thing.

Back to the A-10 networked with light infantry. Of course it can pown heavy units and create the corridors of suppressed enemy resistance typical for heavy armour offensives. Light armour has a great defense advantage in conjunction with using the right terrain. If they have to cross open terrain they need efficient firepower and A-10 are among the best choices for a flexible support.
Now as has been rightly pointed out the A-10 needs fighter protection. That's rather self-evident because heavy infantry as well as A-10 need this protection to do their thing or get destroyed.
Fighter protecion is not the same as air supremacy, you just need to organize a fighter cover for your A-10 sorties and have some SAM batteries and surveillance to enhance the odds for your own fighters. Serbia is an example that tried to operate their fighters under SAM cover, but was overwhelmed by numbers and equipment.

The Wiesel light tank is a German concept for the largest part of the German army to operate as light troops and defeat the former tank heavy Warsaw pact armies in defense. Light infantry has a boost through 3D air-mech strike (Russian idea) and can make supply for enemy frontlines difficult (deep penetration concept) while having much terrain to be in advantageous positions.

The major difference between light and heavy in the original sense, light units needed mobility and/or terrain to fight heavy troops that could fight anywhere and close for the kill. The same old principles for fighting each other hold true through the ages.

solarz said:

Is it possible to have an army equipped only with small arms and civilian-grade communication equipment to win a war against a modern, top-tier, combined arms army? I'm not talking about dragging out an insurgency until the more powerful army calls it quits, but actually winning battles through tactics, organization, and yes, numbers.

Let's assume that the infantry army can get access to top-tier small arms, but small arms only. No tanks, no aircraft. Civilian grade vehicles are available. Assume a landlocked battleground and navies are irrelevant.

What kind of equipment would make this scenario possible? What kind of tactics? What would be the numerical advantage necessary?

Click to expand...

You're kidding right?

With technology these days there is no way an infantry only force is going to defeat a force that can be considered 'top tier' today. The air force alone would render the infantry only force ineffective, just look at the Taliban in Afghanistan. Add in even a nominal ground force and the infantry only side is toast, evidence being the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, or the FARC in Colombia. The case of Iraq and Libya shows that not even a moderately equipped and trained ground force can withstand modern airpower.

The only scenario for an infantry only force to win is in the first moment of a civil war and they are part of the existing military, so they just turn around and shoot their fellow countrymen before anybody has a chance to be equipped with anything.

I think I know where you are coming from solarz (having toyed with similar questions in the past) The answer though is no, as the lesson of land warfare in WW2 was that a smaller army that it is more mobile and with heavier firepower will simply take a part a numerically superior but slow and less heavily armed adversary piecemeal.

What is true though, is that where all else is roughly equal, if one side has the ability to field large numbers of light infantry of all types, then they will enjoy a significant advantage over the other side which cannot, principally by being to better able to preserve their elite and heavy units and being better able to rest.

If large number sof light infantry formations are able to operate with minimal restriction, they will be able to continually probe and identify enemy formations and slow down assaults, allowing heavy units to be used sparingly and to maximum effect.

Maybe if the infantry themselves were part of a homegrown popular uprising against the tyranny of their governments. They will not directly defeat the countries' armed forces, but with popular backing they will cause enough stress to make the commanders ask themselves whether it makes sense to continue supressing their own people, and many of these commanders will either turn against the establishment or become local warlords.