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You are point of view is based on the assumption that your experience is similar to those serving during WW2.

His point, which is correct, is that turnover for a World War 2 Division in combat was worse than the turnover in his peacetime unit; which would make any idea of being able to retain any specific specialisms (which again are overblown to begin with) pretty remote and can be easily simulated by experience anyway.
 
His point, which is correct, is that turnover for a World War 2 Division in combat was worse than the turnover in his peacetime unit; which would make any idea of being able to retain any specific specialisms (which again are overblown to begin with) pretty remote and can be easily simulated by experience anyway.
Which is ridiculous since experience is way too general to describe specific skills and attributes gained from combat in a particular environment or situation.

Just because my 11th infantry division kicked ass in the alpine would mean it is not going to get slaughtered in the Russian steppes.
 
Which is ridiculous since experience is way too general to describe specific skills and attributes gained from combat in a particular environment or situation.

Just because my 11th infantry division kicked ass in the alpine would mean it is not going to get slaughtered in the Russian steppes.

And yet the American Divisions who fought in North Africa did fine in Normandy, where the terrain was different. Heck, some US Armored Divisions in their first major engagement completely destroyed German Panzer Divisions which were led by three-year "veterans" from the East Front; so how can one assume that a Division that fought in the mountains wouldn't do well in Russia?

The simple reality is that "experience" very often was applicable regardless of terrain, since most of the things that "experience" teaches you are incredibly basic things like "constant vigilance".

And really, it needs to be remembered that no side in World War 2 should have had inherently good jungle, alpine, or whatever fighters in the first place - because the manpower of all the warring sides were universally conscripts; most likely former city-dwellers or farmers.

This is why, when facing the Japanese at Guadalcanal, very few Marines were impressed by the supposed "jungle warfare" mastery of the Japanese ("Who are they kidding? They live in cities just like we do!") and the very first engagement ended up as a one-sided massacre where the Japanese were machine-gunned to death by Marines who understood simple concepts like "entrenchments", "fire discipline", and "not loosing your nerve in the face of screaming fanatics who only think they are bulletproof". And all in their first real jungle combat fight too.

Again, the whole "jungle/mountain/whatever" warfare tropes that units claim to have is usually overblown. And more often than not what it means in practical terms is that these units have specific equipment that allow them to fight in such terrain - in the case of alpine troops the difference usually being the use of light pack howitzers that are the only artillery that can be brought up a mountain (which also makes the Division extremely weak elsehwere).
 
His point, which is correct, is that turnover for a World War 2 Division in combat was worse than the turnover in his peacetime unit; which would make any idea of being able to retain any specific specialisms (which again are overblown to begin with) pretty remote and can be easily simulated by experience anyway.

I get that. But does that imply that skills cannot be thought and that manuals cannot be written within a military unit that has specific combat experience?
 
I get that. But does that imply that skills cannot be thought and that manuals cannot be written within a military unit that has specific combat experience?
Then tell me, how is fighting in a desert so much different than fighting in the steppe or plains? How jungle warfare is different from fighting in a forested area? All of this - on a company-battalion level, of course, since above that would be a general's perk.
 
And yet the American Divisions who fought in North Africa did fine in Normandy, where the terrain was different. Heck, some US Armored Divisions in their first major engagement completely destroyed German Panzer Divisions which were led by three-year "veterans" from the East Front; so how can one assume that a Division that fought in the mountains wouldn't do well in Russia?

The simple reality is that "experience" very often was applicable regardless of terrain, since most of the things that "experience" teaches you are incredibly basic things like "constant vigilance".

And really, it needs to be remembered that no side in World War 2 should have had inherently good jungle, alpine, or whatever fighters in the first place - because the manpower of all the warring sides were universally conscripts; most likely former city-dwellers or farmers.

This is why, when facing the Japanese at Guadalcanal, very few Marines were impressed by the supposed "jungle warfare" mastery of the Japanese ("Who are they kidding? They live in cities just like we do!") and the very first engagement ended up as a one-sided massacre where the Japanese were machine-gunned to death by Marines who understood simple concepts like "entrenchments", "fire discipline", and "not loosing your nerve in the face of screaming fanatics who only think they are bulletproof". And all in their first real jungle combat fight too.

You examples are extremely simplified and not appropriate. No one said that a skill makes a division categorically better either.

Again, the whole "jungle/mountain/whatever" warfare tropes that units claim to have is usually overblown. And more often than not what it means in practical terms is that these units have specific equipment that allow them to fight in such terrain - in the case of alpine troops the difference usually being the use of light pack howitzers that are the only artillery that can be brought up a mountain (which also makes the Division extremely weak elsehwere).

That is not true. See the link on desert warfare below.

Then tell me, how is fighting in a desert so much different than fighting in the steppe or plains? How jungle warfare is different from fighting in a forested area? All of this - on a company-battalion level, of course, since above that would be a general's perk.

You can read about it there:

http://www.xenophon-mil.org/milhist/modern/deswar2.htm

And here
 
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Your examples completely disregard other factors that win battles such as numerical, logistical, firepower, Air power, supply etc superiority. For example: The allies almost consistently outnumbered their foe, sometimes by as much as 9:1, during the Guadalcanal campaign you mentioned, the Allies: 60K, Japan: 36K,
Normandy, the Allies had: 150K, Germany: 50K
Iwo Jima, US: 70K, Japan: 22K.
Not to mention that the Semi automatic M1 Garand was a standard issue for US troops serving in the Pacific, while the Japanes had to contend with bolt action rifle (type 91?)
Ambushing US troops was a big part of the Japanese strategy, something that required extensive experience with the terrain.
As for north Africa, the first encounter between the US and Germany, the US troops, unaccustomed to the mountainous terrain, made a series of blunders (digging shallow trenches, standing on the crest of mountains exposing their silhouettes etc) which cost them the battle.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Kasserine_Pass#Allied_analysis
 
I get that. But does that imply that skills cannot be thought and that manuals cannot be written within a military unit that has specific combat experience?

That's why you look at the books of other people who have been through jungle / mountain combat & survival, and have training exercises.

How do you think Japan got to be such good jungle fighters? There are no jungles in Japan.

Note also that the US Army basically rebuilt its entire Armored force on the basis of a single large-scale training exercise; which proved its validity when US Armored Divisions ended up consistently beating their German Panzer counterparts from 1944 onwards.

That is not true. See the lnk one desert warfare below for example

You cannot "train" to fight better in the desert to begin with. The Germans had this notion that they could "train" their men to "get used" to the desert and eventually reduce their water rations, but in reality that just got more of their men killed by heatstroke.

The challenges of the desert campaign were almost entirely logistical - which Rommel was a complete idiot at, which is why he "learned" (or more correctly blundered) so much about logistics. It's all about port capacities and truck capacities. After that, you need to have proper desert-fighting gear - proper sand-proof filters for instance - which no amount of "experience" will fix outside of a quick slapdash job that should have been corrected in the factory and not in the field.

Men cannot last longer in the desert no matter how much you train them, and there's really not much different in desert fighting compared to fighting in open / hilly terrain with little foilage.
 
Your examples completely disregard other factors that win battles such as numerical, logistical, firepower, Air power, supply etc superiority. For example: The allies almost consistently outnumbered their foe, sometimes by as much as 9:1, during the Guadalcanal campaign you mentioned, the Allies: 60K, Japan: 36K

Quoting a lot of big words that have no relation to the subject just because you are being proven wrong doesn't change the fact that you are wrong.

Because the battle of Tenaru river involved a thousand Japanese being killed for the lost of a mere 50 Marines, or a 20-to-one kill ratio. Sure, there were more Marines, but the issue is that the Japanese charged machineguns with bayonets. No army that retarded is going to survive no matter how much it beats its chest and pretends it has such awesome jungle combat experience.

As the Marines said: "They live in cities just like we do". They refused to be cowed by Japanese propaganda and didn't buy into the myth of their superior jungle-fighting techniques. Hell, if we're going to be really strict about it Tenaru was really a battle between 1,000 Japanese and a handful of machine guns and 37mm guns, crewed by only a few hundred Americans. The conclusion of the battle? Machine gun > Japanese with delusions of being good jungle fighters, to the tune of 20-to-1 loss ratio.
 
That's why you look at the books of other people who have been through jungle / mountain combat & survival, and have training exercises.

How do you think Japan got to be such good jungle fighters? There are no jungles in Japan.

Note also that the US Army basically rebuilt its entire Armored force on the basis of a single large-scale training exercise; which proved its validity when US Armored Divisions ended up consistently beating their German Panzer counterparts from 1944 onwards.

Here you say that you can read books to fight better in jungles

You cannot "train" to fight better in the desert to begin with. The Germans had this notion that they could "train" their men to "get used" to the desert and eventually reduce their water rations, but in reality that just got more of their men killed by heatstroke.

And here you say that you cannot train to fight better in deserts

So which one is it?

The challenges of the desert campaign were almost entirely logistical - which Rommel was a complete idiot at, which is why he "learned" (or more correctly blundered) so much about logistics. It's all about port capacities and truck capacities. After that, you need to have proper desert-fighting gear - proper sand-proof filters for instance - which no amount of "experience" will fix outside of a quick slapdash job that should have been corrected in the factory and not in the field.

Men cannot last longer in the desert no matter how much you train them, and there's really not much different in desert fighting compared to fighting in open / hilly terrain with little foilage.

Obviously you read nothing of the links I provided. You might wanna do that as your knowledge in regards to desert warfare seems to be fairly limited.
 
Quoting a lot of big words that have no relation to the subject just because you are being proven wrong doesn't change the fact that you are wrong.

Because the battle of Tenaru river involved a thousand Japanese being killed for the lost of a mere 50 Marines, or a 20-to-one kill ratio. Sure, there were more Marines, but the issue is that the Japanese charged machineguns with bayonets. No army that retarded is going to survive no matter how much it beats its chest and pretends it has such awesome jungle combat experience.

As the Marines said: "They live in cities just like we do". They refused to be cowed by Japanese propaganda and didn't buy into the myth of their superior jungle-fighting techniques. Hell, if we're going to be really strict about it Tenaru was really a battle between 1,000 Japanese and a handful of machine guns and 37mm guns, crewed by only a few hundred Americans. The conclusion of the battle? Machine gun > Japanese with delusions of being good jungle fighters, to the tune of 20-to-1 loss ratio.
There ya go, you explained the lopsided kill ratio, it was machine guns versus bayonets. terrain experience is just one factor among many that wins or loses battles, being accustomed to a certain type of terrain wont make impervious to bullets, but it will help the common soldier make fewer mistakes like those made by the inexperienced US troops during Kasserine.
Hold all other variable constants, and pin city dwellers versus jungle veterans and tell me who wins.
 
Here you say that you can read books to fight better in jungles


And here you say that you cannot train to fight better in deserts

Are you trying to engage in a serious discussion, or are you just trying to "win" by very dubious interpretations of semantics? Because really, the latter doesn't work on me and makes me shrug at people's inability to focus on the facts and constant attempts to avoid "defeat" through semantic gymnastics.

And ad-hominem claiming I don't know about desert warfare? Please. Ask me a really tough question, like how many trucks it would take to supply the 3 additional Panzer Divisions Rommel requested but didn't know the logistics requirements to.


Anyway...

You can learn about jungle combat and survival from books written by people who previously experienced it. This is fact. This is why there are no quotes when I say training in this regard.

However, your source claims German "training" in the desert, which I enclose in quotes because the sort of "training" they tried to implement was, in a word, retarded and could not be considered to be real training. Why do you think I used quotes and then further defined what that "training" actually was? Really, you entirely ignored this bit:

The Germans had this notion that they could "train" their men to "get used" to the desert and eventually reduce their water rations, but in reality that just got more of their men killed by heatstroke.

Again, we are talking about an Afrika Korps who thought you can "train" a person to drink less water in the desert. This is not only wrong, this is criminally negligent and stupid which cost men their lives due to heatstroke.

Trying to pretend there is any sort of inconsistent positioning here is simply shying away from the fact that the Afrika Korps in fact had one of the most retarded "training" courses on desert warfare ever, which claims that you can train people to drink less water in the desert. But really, what do you expect from a Nazi Germany that loves emebelleshing pointless titles on units, and yet is so stupid on the scientific front that it rejects the theory of relativity in favor of a theory that claims the sun is a giant ball of ice?

The fact that you keep claiming that a source which advocates "drink less water" as part of desert training is valid should really show who's the one who knows nothing about desert operations here. Really, you'll learn more about how to operate in a desert more by watching Jarhead (with its hydrate, hydrate, hydrate some more montage) than anything the Germans came up with for the Afrika Korps.
 
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There ya go, you explained the lopsided kill ratio, it was machine guns versus bayonets. terrain experience is just one factor among many that wins or loses battles, being accustomed to a certain type of terrain wont make impervious to bullets, but it will help the common soldier make fewer mistakes like those made by the inexperienced US troops during Kasserine.
Hold all other variable constants, and pin city dwellers versus jungle veterans and tell me who wins.

If terrain experience was in fact completely irrelevant, why should we bother to model it? Are you saying that the Japanese would have suffered 25-to-1 losses instead of 20-to-1 because of their jungle combat experience? We go from "utterly massacred" to "mostly utterly massacred"? I hardly think that's really a big difference; nor is it provable to begin with.

You're not helping your case here; just getting mad at me for pointing out that all this "jungle/mountain" embellishment is just that - embellishment. You still get massacred 20-to-1 if you charge bayonets with machine guns no matter how well you claim to know the jungle (Which the Japanese clearly didn't, because again they lived in cities just like the Americans), so why should we model these embellishments and even give them an in-game effect when you already in-effect admit that they in fact don't help that much (if at all) in real combat?
 
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A unit will gain experience, true, not arguing that. But how the hell will a unit know how to fight in a certain condition that much better, if only 20% of its members ever fought in those conditions?
One assumes the survivors become NCOs who pass their knowledge on.

Experience will take care of that in game terms - no need to introduce "perks".
I agree tho - another gimmick that would waste PDox's time.
 
Are you trying to engage in a serious discussion, or are you just trying to "win" by very dubious interpretations of semantics? Because really, the latter doesn't work on me and makes me shrug at people's inability to focus on the facts and constant attempts to avoid "defeat" through semantic gymnastics.

And ad-hominem claiming I don't know about desert warfare? Please. Ask me a really tough question, like how many trucks it would take to supply the 3 additional Panzer Divisions Rommel requested but didn't know the logistics requirements to.

I am trying to have a discussion but it is hard to understand your position when you are making two contradicting arguments.

Anyway...

You can learn about jungle combat and survival from books written by people who previously experienced it. This is fact. This is why there are no quotes when I say training in this regard.

However, your source claims German "training" in the desert, which I enclose in quotes because the sort of "training" they tried to implement was, in a word, retarded and could not be considered to be real training.

Again, we are talking about an Afrika Korps who thought you can "train" a person to drink less water in the desert. This is not only wrong, this is criminally negligent and stupid which cost men their lives due to heatstroke.

Trying to pretend there is any sort of inconsistent positioning here is simply shying away from the fact that the Afrika Korps in fact had one of the most retarded "training" courses on desert warfare ever, which claims that you can train people to drink less water in the desert. But really, what do you expect from a Nazi Germany that loves emebelleshing pointless titles on units, and yet is so stupid on the scientific front that it rejects the theory of relativity in favor of a theory that claims the sun is a giant ball of ice?

The fact that you keep claiming that a source which advocates "drink less water" as part of desert training is valid should really show who's the one who knows nothing about desert operations here.

Again, you contradict yourself. Now you argue that one can learn about jungle combat from books written by people who previously experienced it but the Germans could not be trained on desert warfare. So why couldn't the Germans read books on desert warfare then, and train themselves on the basis of that?

And you lost all credibility with the last quasi-political sentence.
 
Again, you contradict yourself.

All I see is you ignoring what I actually said twice, claiming I contradicted myself through a very blatant twisting of what I actually said, and then claiming I lost all credibility.

Do you really think anyone cares about your pointless declarations of "I win"?

Meanwhile, the fact that the Afrika Korps seriously tried to "train" its men to drink less water, which any experienced desert survivalist will tell you is the last mistake you will ever make in the desert, still stands.

That you still think that real training from survival/combat books and the nonsense "training" that you linked is in any way comparable is just a failure of comprehension (deliberate or not) on your part. They are not the same even if you pretend they are. This is why I advocated the former and dismissed the latter.

Oh, and by the way, the Nazi subscription to the "World Ice Theory" is a fact. That you think it strips me of credibility when it's simply one of the many, many, proofs of Nazi Germany's subscription to unscientific principles should really go to show who's the one ignorant of good science.
 
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From the thread on leadership - I did some digging on Percival and the fall of Singapore - internet is a marvellous thing.

- I found a UK Government report on the fall of Singapore and it's reasons. There were lots - not just lacking leadership.

One part talks about the state of troops stationed there. They were totally unsuited to the conditions Jungle / Heat / Humidity, the troops weren't able to do a lot (digging / fortifying / fighting) they tended to be umbilicalled to their transport and the road, which the Japanese exploited fully with encirclements. The report indicated that it would take at least 6 months training in those conditions to get troops up some semblance of usefulness. So my comment pertinent to the above posts is that in my view Jungle and Forrest is not the same - Jungle in my view means sapping heat and humidity and very wet, it required troops to be acclimatised and trained for those climatic conditions it's not that they both have trees.
Climate and terrain aren't the same thing. Acclimatisation is a factor and was readily observed in the Gulf War, especially in the British Army, when vehicles needed special acclimatisation equipment modifications. This exists in HOIs already, though.

A jungle and a forest is the same thing; in fact, in countries with what we call "jungles," they are more likely to use the term "forest" (at least in India and Malaysia, as two English-speaking examples). Jungle itself is a relatively non-descript term as there are also rainforests, mangrove forests, so on. A jungle is usually described as being impenetrable, as opposed to a forest, so of course for our purposes that's a very serious difference, but one only needs to look at the Kokoda Trail to know that nothing is impenetrable.

I think the important thing about climate is actually rain. Tanks can operate in forests - for a more modern example, Australian Centurions in Vietnam. The Asian climate includes a monsoon period with flash flooding and heavy rain and otherwise awful heat which seems to debilitate a lot of Europeans, as your quote suggests. As for acclimatisation, it could be represented by an org drop to 0 amongst units transferring between continents, i suppose.
 
All I see is you ignoring what I actually said twice, claiming I contradicted myself through a very blatant twisting of what I actually said, and then claiming I lost all credibility.

Do you really think anyone cares about your pointless declarations of "I win"?

Meanwhile, the fact that the Afrika Korps seriously tried to "train" its men to drink less water, which any experienced desert survivalist will tell you is the last mistake you will ever make in the desert, still stands.

That you still think that real training from survival/combat books and the nonsense "training" that you linked is in any way comparable is just a failure of comprehension (deliberate or not) on your part.

Oh, and by the way, the Nazi subscription to the "World Ice Theory" is a fact. That you think it strips me of credibility when it's simply one of the many, many, proofs of Nazi Germany's subscription to unscientific principles should really go to show who's the one ignorant of good science.

It is very comparable indeed. Training is often based on written material.

Where do you have it from that the Germans instructed their soldiers to drink less water in deserts?

Find another thread to discuss your ice theory stuff
 
It is very comparable indeed. Training is often based on written material.

Where do you have it from that the Germans instructed their soldiers to drink less water in deserts?

Training may be based on written material, but written material is not equal. This is why World Ice Theory and Theory of Relativity were both brought up in the first place. They may be both written material, but one is unscientific nonsense and the other is the accepted leading theory in how the universe actually works.

I'll look for the exact memo that advocated lowering the water rations for the Afrika Korps in the hopes the troops would get used to it ("training and acclimitisation"), but the Afrika Korps trooper was usually issued with only 2 litres of water for all needs, when the Brits were getting 3-4 litres (with most modern guides recommending 4 litres a day). Even the Bedouins averaged 3 litres and they lived in the desert all their lives.
 
In theory it is a good idea, But it would have to be susceptible to decay aswell. I know alot of people are talking about serving in the military etc. Surely if a division was constantly fighting in urban areas they would gain experience and this would be passed on from soldier to soldier. From talking to guys who served in Northern Ireland in the past alot of what they did when on patrols didn't come from training but from what they were taught or learned while deployed.

The decay would come in from fighting in different environments and could be effected by replenishment rates, If the division suffers heavy casualties this could cause it to lose any bonus it did have.
 
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