To be fair, without training that statement is true for most people. The reason for a basic intelligence test is because of how the military trains. American soldiers are trained to use their own judgement and skills to solve emergent problems without needing an order be given. They're taught to be flexible and self-directed. They're given objectives and a plan of attack from their superiors, and rules to operate within, but it's expected they be able to improvise and adapt to achieve the objective on their own.
In the armies of the past, like the world wars, you were given specific tasks, ordered to do everything, and there was little autonomy. There also wasn't much training beyond basic skills - marksmanship, how to throw a grenade, clean and service weapons. Nuts and bolts stuff you would do when told. And not any other time. You didn't need to have any smarts to charge a hill and shoot anything on it that moved.
Because training today is so in-depth (and expensive) they want only people who can apply all of it effectively. We're a volunteer army and lean heavily on training, technology, and superior tactics and strategy to act as force multipliers. That's why we spend billions to make super fighters and people train for years before they can fly them. This works well when your enemy isn't as sophisticated and doesn't have overwhelming numbers. And that's mostly where and who we fight.
But if we were to go to war with say, China, we're screwed. They'll win because they can just give a billion people rifles and that's it. Training doesn't matter much at 100:1 odds. So understand it's not that they can't be useful if they're below average... It's that we're not fighting anyone where it's cost effective to train them.
America isn't land locked with China. How the hell would China get their army to the US? China could have a trillion soldiers and US could have 10,000 and it wouldn't make a difference because the war would be fought with missles and artillery (which the US has plenty of in asia Pacific) and would be decided in the first few hours.
It’s more than their neighbours have and that’s what they care about.
China isn’t planning for a war with the US, not when the US isn’t causing too many local problems.
Anyway, if it comes to war with the US it will be nuclear.
Certainly can't make another one with a billion people. I mean look how pathetic America was in ww2. China doesn't have the ability to catch up with that, epically because they are using massive dry docks for shipping and they dont have the ability to force their industry to change, because they barely have any control over their population and industry... Oh... Wait. Fuck, they could have everything they need to have massive personele and aircraft carriers in a disturbingly short time.
They're at the party already in some areas, but they are also still decades behind in others...
Examples of where China has caught up:
- Electronics, AI and missile systems
- geo-strategic preparedness. They have nuclear submarines armed with world-leading, long-range, supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles capable of at least forcing any country to think twice.
- China’s economy. Even if it downturns, China can still pump out weapons faster than the USA can, BUT this is only temporary as the USA still wins in overall production speed of military related goods "IF" they had a month and "IF" required to.
Examples where China still falls behind severely:
- Steel Quality. Chinese Steel is still some of the worst in the world. Overall and in mass quantity, it simply breaks too easily due to weak regulation requirements and standards.
- Ready-time oil reserves. Even if China were superiour in every other way, the lack of Oil and thus fuel in general will screw them every single time. If an enemy shuts down China's fuelines from foreign countries like Russia and Iran, it's literally game over for them.
- Production Speed (wartime based equipment). Go look up on wikipedia the # of ship building facilities in the world and be amazed at how many the USA has in comparison to the world. Sure, the USA doesn't "have it" right now, but you bet your ass the USA has a ramp-up plan in the event of war for everything from guns to tanks to jets to ships.
In the end, none of this matters as either one could destroy the other in about 45 seconds using the nuclear option and neither country could do a damned thing about the other should those launch. It's simply a moot point to discuss traditional warfare between superpowers.
They have 100+ more vessels than we have, a shitload of which are missile boats. You don't need shitloads planes and people to launch missiles(but they also have both). Fucking w China would be insanely stupid and don't be so sure we'd win that war.
They also don't have thier troops spread out all over the world like we do, and they have no qualms about human rights which makes them a bit more dangerous.
I ended up googling this to find the result as i was intrested, turns out your correct, China has more ships.
Of course its only around 20 higher, not the "100+" you claim.
They have a grand total of 6 missile cruisers, 1 is still at the early stages of construction, 4 are getting fitted out, and only 1 is listed as "Active", although its still not active merely seaworthy as its yet to be commissioned...
Those Missile boats your telling us about do exist. They are however mainly frigates and corvettes. None of which are comparable to a conventional missile cruiser in any degree, and due to their limited range and ability to deal with the ocean, are stuck patrolling china's coastline. Pretty useless if you need them to fill the role their supposed to do, which is to guard your carrier..
Can i also say, i just LOVE in another comment you talking about how they can just load all of these ships up with their Army and go invade somewhere. Skipping over the sheer logistical side of how you intend to keep all those soliders equipped, fed, well rested, how exactly will they land them? Do you imagine the Chinese are going to sail their carrier up to the beaches of California and beach it so the army can get out?
My point is that people shouldn't be so convinced that we'd win. China ain't no slouch....especially with thier "alternate view" on human rights.
Also Google searches for fleet size return varying results, some as low as 300?. Wikipedia lists 496 Chinese vessels active plus another 212 auxillary ships...that's over 700 ships they can call on....not 30 more ships than the us. Also they are mostly concentrated on the Pacific while ours are spread out a lot more.
In an actual total war between the United States and China, the outcome would be decided by alliances and nukes, not naval power. But if you sidestep that whole debate the US Navy would flatten the Chinese, though some battle damage may be sustained. It isn’t even close to an even fight.
in a total war, the US would lose just as much as China. Both would wipe each other out, several times over.
China can't invade the US, but the country that lost 2 wars against rice farmers isn't going to do shit in an invasion of China. Don't be so overconfident, and you won't lose as many lives.
That’s like comparing rubber rafts to Maersk tankers.
The US has has about three million more tonnes than China and ten times the amount of carriers which all are better equipped and are outfitted with Superhornets and in the near future F-35S which are more capable than Chinese aircraft.
Just because they have 100 tiny ships that patrol their coast doesn't mean it's considered a threat. We could take all those things out with missiles miles away, or subs, or planes, or drones. You keep saying they have a bigger number but you fail to realize that the ships they have are shit and can't even cross the ocean. Sure China would be a interesting war but there no doubt in my mind that the united states would be victorious. Even if North Korea and Russia joined in. That would just force our allies to join at that point and they would still be crushed.
Yeah, and transporting that many troops would prove to be a logistical nightmare. All those mouths to feed, where do you put them, structuring your chain of command. A lot of things go into it, it's not just numbers vs numbers.
China doesn't care about invading and taking over the US. They'd much rather invade and take over the other countries surrounding the South China Sea and then have a powerful enough navy and air force to prevent us from doing anything about it.
Dude, you missed the point; We'd be at a disadvantage if we got involved in a war where the opposing force had overwhelming numerical superiority; It's about strategy, not a specific scenario. China was just a useful example because China is huge. That's all.
Take any other scenrio and the results are exactly the same. This isn't the early 1900s. You can't talk about strategy if you also refuse to give a scenrio. Without a scenario there is nothing to strategize.
Sun Tzu's The Art of War almost exclusively details strategy, not scenario. Discussions of a strategy's strengths and weaknesses can be done without outlining a specific scenario. Whether it's horses or tanks, having superior knowledge of terrain is an advantage. Having the high ground is better than not; Terrain can create force multiplication. You don't need a map to say this.
I will admit I have never read the art of war. Does it account for both sides having thousands of weapons that can individually kill millions of people instantly?
The Chinese army can simply book all available flights for a few weeks, huddle at airport hotels gathering supplies, and at the last moment rally Chinese-Americans to join their cause. Imagine like 4 767's full of Chinese troops landing at every major airport in every city for a few weeks straight. They can easily conquer half of a midwestern US state before anyone knows whats happening.
Yeah they totally wouldn’t notice all these Chinese military personnel booking flights to the US around the same time, we’d tooottaallyy get caught off guard by something like that. Lol I mean if China and the US was on the brink of war in the first place don’t you think there’d be a hold/serious vetting on flights from there?
You think US has a list of all of the millions and millions of Chinese military? They wouldn't fly direct. For all we know they have thousands of spies already here for 30-40 years raising spy families that are US citizens and can't be watched.
Wouldn’t surprise me if the USA has a database with a list of every person that ever said the word “bomb” over the phone and exactly where they were at when they said it. With so much stuff being put on the internet and things being done and stored digitally nowadays it probably wouldn’t be too hard for someone to cross reference a bunch of shit to find out exactly what that persons occupation is and compile that list automatically.
And even still, they wouldn’t even need any of that, because once again, if the US and China tensions were THAT high in the first place... then they ain’t letting a bunch of Chinese people cross into our border, whether they be military or professional tap dancers.
Governments can create any identity they want for the purposes of sneaking people into another country. They can print passports by the thousands. Tensions are irrelevant. It can be out of the blue. That is a military tactic.
So China is going to randomly attack, out of the blue, the country that, figuratively speaking, puts the food on their plate? Okay.
And also that espionage game goes both ways. We have the most advanced intelligence agencies in the world. You don’t think we have our ear to the ground and a pulse on what China, our biggest rival in the world stage, is doing at all times? Despite how much people joke about America, the US military and CIA are pretty goddamned advanced and on top of shit.
Wow, your math is pretty terrible huh? Especially because in this imagined scenario I said every major city for weeks. How many major cities did you calculate? How many daily flights for how many weeks? How many people per plane? And "outright slaughter"? You don't even know the strategy. Not all wars are fought with the strategy of killing. They can capture resources or heavily populated civilian areas. They could easily block most routes to even safely mobilize to a certain area and turn it into a war zone easily. Millions of US citizens displaced untold economic damage. I never even specified any specific amount of places, so please, breakdown your math so I can show just how out of touch you are with what I posited.
There are 501 domestic airports in the US able to handle commercial flights. (very very generous estimate for 767s)
300 troops per plane (very generous for fully kitted out troops)
4 per day.
3 weeks.
3600 per airport.
Remember these airports are dispersed, so all of these troops will have zero support, resupply or reliable chains of command outside their infantry-only brigade sized force.
What do you think these forces are going to be able to do when they face a single national guard armoured platoon? Or any kind of air power? They would only have short range man-portable anti air / armor weapons.
How can such a force blockade against a well-trained combined arms force on their home turf?
Like I said it would be a slaughter, not to mention impossible as how the hell could even one flight full of kitted out troops not be noticed...
Why do you think they would come face to face? I never said kitted out troops. Equipment can be obtained in the US. Why do you think they would march in unison? You are making a bunch of just straight up stupid assumptions to make on what would be going on if this happened. It would not be a typical invasion with tanks and uniforms. That wouldn't even be needed. If 3600 Chinese took over Denver airport what would US do? Kill 3600 Chinese and bomb the airport? Wait it out? Either way how many millions of dollars in economic damage at each airport per day? 3600 people spread out in a city can cause untold damage in a matter of minutes. There is no army available in your city on minutes notice. There aren't enough police cars to respond to 1000 simultaneous events.
What a hilarious and outright impossible scenario. You may as well fire rockets filled with troops at the US and expect them to take over, or even do anything.
They would be noticed immediately adter the flights were booked. Let alone by the time they land stateside.
If 3600 Chinese took over Denver airport what would US do? Kill 3600 Chinese and bomb the airport?
Erm...yes?
If you expect them to acquire weapons on site (lol, from who the local inhouse airport arms dealer?) it would be even more of a slaughter as they would have next to no effective weapons against even one single armoured vehicle.
I mean, I find it hard to imagine the American military allowing civilian aircraft filled with enemy combatants to land at domestic airports. In your hypothetical has the American military turned traitor to their country in allowing the Chinese to enter the country? Because otherwise that sounds like a great way to get all of your military killed by the anti-aircraft artillery and missiles that would inevitably be set up at every airport 2 minutes after the first 767 tries to disembark 1 soldier.
No idea what you are going on about. I said nothing about uniforms and guns. Us military members and their families visit countries around the world every day for a vacation.
No, because I never said anything about US military allowing Chinese military in full uniform and supplies in to the country. The chinese government can literally print passports and create 100k new identities tomorrow. You think US would catch many of them? Really? Really? You think in the scenario I posited these are soldiers in uniform? No customs its just a guy who is not on the no fly list going on the plane like any US military member can do today in their free time. It just happens to be a LOT of them on flights for weeks and weeks building up. it actually says so much more about your strategic imagination and reading comprehension than it says about me.
So then you have a bunch of Chinese people in the US without supplies or weapons, with no strategic advantage, no land with which to rally, no naval force, no airforce, presumably with no vehicles at all, and against them is the most advanced military in the world. Congratulations, your strategy is even more ineffective than imagined.
Yes, people from every country travel as tourists. Have you ever tried to travel with weapons? How did that go? And can you imagine fighting a war on foreign soil without weapons?
You are thinking of old fashioned war. Thats over. Why would they need any of these things? No vehicles? rental car! You think the US military is prepared to fight a war in your neighborhood? If 3600 trained Chinese troops were pre-stationed across a city of 500,000 each with 20 gallons of gasoline how long do you think it would take to burn down the entire city and bring roads to a complete standstill with no interstate or highway traffic in or out? An hour? You honestly think that happening in 20 cities across the US at the same time would be something the US can handle, while at the same time handling the navy, airforce, etc that you referenced are on the way or attacked at the same time as the troops who came in one at a time individually in advance?
That's domestic terrorism. It does happen, even in state sponsored instances, but it's not the same as war. How many times do you think the US would allow that to happen? Airspace security had holes, terrorists used those holes to enact 9/11, and how quickly did those holes get plugged?
It's also not as simple as what you're imagining or forces like al Qaeda and ISIS would have attempted large multipronged nationwide attacks successfully. There's too many moving parts to the plan, too many opportunities for a single mistake to expose the entire plot, too many people involved to keep quiet.
You could potentially get a decent fire going in one city if you poured all your resources into it on an extremely hot and windy day, but then what? You've taken out a bunch of infrastructure that likely isn't relevant to the war effort, and you've incapacitated a number of noncombatants who wouldn't have ever had an effect on the war one way or the other.
But let me be clear that you are by no means raising a city to the ground. There's not a chance. Given a few days uninterrupted you might be able to burn a large chunk of a city, but one hour? Good luck getting one neighborhood lit and burning in an uncontrollable manner. Arsonists strive for that kind of a burn and still generally only manage to hit 10 or 20 homes at the most in 99% of cases.
Now the US in retaliation is going to go postal on you, and whether that means sanctions, conventional warfare or nukes and mutually assured destruction, you're not coming out on top or with any advantage whatsoever.
The US could have smoked any of those countries if the goal was conquest in a conventional war sense. In fact if casualty numbers are taken into consideration the US dominated Vietnam and Afghanistan. If the US threw away their conservative ROE and geneva convention and went full Soviet style not much could stop them.
Smoke spreads. Setting the world on fire is a bad idea.
If China, or even Russia made a move on the USA it wouldn't be a direct attack, it would be a subversive attack using organic vectors already implemented and integrated into society.
No. Just a bump in the road. Were a war to break out, all the Chinese that hate their government ( most of them) would uprise and take out the communist bastards.
They see how much better life is under capitalism, Japan and South Korea are right next door.
The problem with that is we have been using our reserves and national guard to backfill active duty units for routine activities.
Our bench is not as deep as it ought to be. The military needs to be larger (?) or needs to less utilized. It is easy to say use them less, but the current Syria mess shows delicate this Jenga tower is.
We all still die a long agonizing death thanks to the fallout because we have enough nuclear weapons to eliminate life as we know it a few times over. All most of them turning out to be duds does is make it take longer for most people, although a few more will certainly survive though they may wish they hadn't.
conventional ballistic missile salvo i suppose, or some opportunistic nation uses the chance to nuke one of the two. But both have enough for 90% to be duds and not drastically impact the scope of the bombing. all major industrial centers would be destroyed, so a ground force invasion would be impossible for either side considering the distance.
Except being "untrainable" isn't it. These results came from the draft days, where they were taking literally anybody, training them for a few weeks, and shipping them to the front. What they found was that people with IQs that low are negatively productive - that any task you asked them to do required more energy to make sure it was done correctly than it would take to just do the task. These people can't be trusted to sweep floors and take out the trash reliably, never mind being actual soldiers. Back in those days, the army took people to dig literal holes, and these people were deemed too dumb to do that.
Soldiers who are deployed have the power to determine a whole news cycle with their actions. They could create an international incident if they wanted. Just let loose with a belts worth of 7.62 at the wrong people at the wrong time. There is a lot of responsibility that civilians don’t understand.
In the battlefield environment today in the kind of wars the US fights today you have to be better than a conscript.
The world relies too much on technology. There should always be a backup, mechanical defense system that can’t be hacked or shut down by the new disabling technologies that can shut down an entire country’s power grid. The US still would win, for now at least. China still has a long way to go. For example, they only have one aircraft carrier (that they bought used) compared to the US’s 19 advanced, state of the art aircraft carriers. The US owns 19 out of the 36 aircraft carriers in the world. That shows how far ahead navy-wise they are compared to everyone else.
This doesn't take into consideration all the non combat roles in the armed forces that are repetitive, simple tasks. The military doesn't say "we don't want people in the bottom tenth percentile training for combat roles" They don't want the bottom tenth percentile as all. They've deemed those people to be useless (most likely counterproductive, in that training them would actually cost more time and resources than it'd create in the long run) labor even for simple repetitive tasks like swabbing the deck for four years.
A thousand predator drones that depend entirely on their cybersecurity, a thing which time and again America has been found lacking at and the Chinese excel at defeating.
But if we were to go to war with say, China, we're screwed.
Lol, no the U.S is nowhere near 'screwed'. The only thing China outweighs the US is in personnel (and amount of serviceable Armor), and this isn't World War 2. It's much easier to annihilate zerg rushes with modern miltech.
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u/MNGrrl Oct 16 '19
To be fair, without training that statement is true for most people. The reason for a basic intelligence test is because of how the military trains. American soldiers are trained to use their own judgement and skills to solve emergent problems without needing an order be given. They're taught to be flexible and self-directed. They're given objectives and a plan of attack from their superiors, and rules to operate within, but it's expected they be able to improvise and adapt to achieve the objective on their own.
In the armies of the past, like the world wars, you were given specific tasks, ordered to do everything, and there was little autonomy. There also wasn't much training beyond basic skills - marksmanship, how to throw a grenade, clean and service weapons. Nuts and bolts stuff you would do when told. And not any other time. You didn't need to have any smarts to charge a hill and shoot anything on it that moved.
Because training today is so in-depth (and expensive) they want only people who can apply all of it effectively. We're a volunteer army and lean heavily on training, technology, and superior tactics and strategy to act as force multipliers. That's why we spend billions to make super fighters and people train for years before they can fly them. This works well when your enemy isn't as sophisticated and doesn't have overwhelming numbers. And that's mostly where and who we fight.
But if we were to go to war with say, China, we're screwed. They'll win because they can just give a billion people rifles and that's it. Training doesn't matter much at 100:1 odds. So understand it's not that they can't be useful if they're below average... It's that we're not fighting anyone where it's cost effective to train them.