How important is combat experience?

uk 75

uk 75

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As the Iraq and Afghanistan wars recede in the past US and allied forces will not be as experienced in actual combat.
At the other end of the scale China has only the Korean War and its unsuccessful invasion of Vietnam to drawn on.
Combat experience does not seem to have helped Russia to fight in Ukraine.
So the relevance of actual combat seems to be variable.
 
uk 75 said:
As the Iraq and Afghanistan wars recede in the past US and allied forces will not be as experienced in actual combat.
At the other end of the scale China has only the Korean War and its unsuccessful invasion of Vietnam to drawn on.
Combat experience does not seem to have helped Russia to fight in Ukraine.
So the relevance of actual combat seems to be variable.
Click to expand...
Combat experience is always useful. Not sure recent Russian experience was useful in preparing for a near-peer conflict though. The same could be said for post Iraq 1991 conflicts for the West as well.

Whether the right lessons are learned from combat experience is less certain, and different militaries (and societies) may differ in how honest they are in self-reflection.
 
Last Chinese soldier who had experience from the Vietnam debacle retired several years ago. The PLA is keenly aware of their lack of experience. This may change as they do more expeditionary efforts in Africa and other locations. The lack of training is playing out poorly in eastern Europe. I can only say that part of why Desert Storm went so very one sided (against an veteran army) was that throughout the 80's the Coalition forces trained continuously in very demanding training environments. Anyone who has been to a US CTC will attest to that. I cannot speak to high speed air combat, perhaps the introduction of unmanned platforms and AI assistance will make training less critical.
 
@uk 75 The Russians will get it in my opinion with this war, regardless on how it will end. I remember someone speculating that the US is sending troops and equipment to Ukraine to test logistics for a potential conflict over Taiwan with the People's Republic of China but I can't say for sure because I haven't found a source which corraborates said speculation.
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
uk 75 said:
As the Iraq and Afghanistan wars recede in the past US and allied forces will not be as experienced in actual combat.
At the other end of the scale China has only the Korean War and its unsuccessful invasion of Vietnam to drawn on.
Combat experience does not seem to have helped Russia to fight in Ukraine.
So the relevance of actual combat seems to be variable.
Click to expand...
Combat experience is always useful. Not sure recent Russian experience was useful in preparing for a near-peer conflict though. The same could be said for post Iraq 1991 conflicts for the West as well.

Whether the right lessons are learned from combat experience is less certain, and different militaries (and societies) may differ in how honest they are in self-reflection.
Click to expand...

I suspect that combat experience is only useful when the military leadership is sufficiently self-critical and sufficiently professional to change when their existing practices are found to be unworkable. A case in point is the French Army in WW1 which remained tied to tactics which led to massive casualties and large-scale demoralization far after a more introspective (and, in my opinion, professional) military leadership would have changed.

Everybody learns from experience (except those for whom the experience was terminal). Smart people learn from others' experience. One would hope that the various pro-democracy armed forces are paying attention to what's happening in Ukraine, both in what Ukraine is doing right, but also to what Russia is doing wrong. One can learn more from failure than success.
 
1635yankee said:
overscan (PaulMM) said:
uk 75 said:
As the Iraq and Afghanistan wars recede in the past US and allied forces will not be as experienced in actual combat.
At the other end of the scale China has only the Korean War and its unsuccessful invasion of Vietnam to drawn on.
Combat experience does not seem to have helped Russia to fight in Ukraine.
So the relevance of actual combat seems to be variable.
Click to expand...
Combat experience is always useful. Not sure recent Russian experience was useful in preparing for a near-peer conflict though. The same could be said for post Iraq 1991 conflicts for the West as well.

Whether the right lessons are learned from combat experience is less certain, and different militaries (and societies) may differ in how honest they are in self-reflection.
Click to expand...

I suspect that combat experience is only useful when the military leadership is sufficiently self-critical and sufficiently professional to change when their existing practices are found to be unworkable. A case in point is the French Army in WW1 which remained tied to tactics which led to massive casualties and large-scale demoralization far after a more introspective (and, in my opinion, professional) military leadership would have changed.

Everybody learns from experience (except those for whom the experience was terminal). Smart people learn from others' experience. One would hope that the various pro-democracy armed forces are paying attention to what's happening in Ukraine, both in what Ukraine is doing right, but also to what Russia is doing wrong. One can learn more from failure than success.
Click to expand...
As Charles Darwin would tell us - It is not the strong who survive, but those who most readily adapt to the environment.
 
yasotay said:
As Charles Darwin would tell us - It is not the strong who survive, but those who most readily adapt to the environment.
Click to expand...

Then Gould and Eldredge showed the importance of pre-adaptation to punctuated equilibrium ... with frightening implications for military procurement policies :eek:
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
uk 75 said:
As the Iraq and Afghanistan wars recede in the past US and allied forces will not be as experienced in actual combat.
At the other end of the scale China has only the Korean War and its unsuccessful invasion of Vietnam to drawn on.
Combat experience does not seem to have helped Russia to fight in Ukraine.
So the relevance of actual combat seems to be variable.
Click to expand...
Combat experience is always useful. Not sure recent Russian experience was useful in preparing for a near-peer conflict though. The same could be said for post Iraq 1991 conflicts for the West as well.

Whether the right lessons are learned from combat experience is less certain, and different militaries (and societies) may differ in how honest they are in self-reflection.
Click to expand...

Some commentators have argued that the Iraq and Afghanistan 'brush' wars weren't terribly useful for this sort of conflict either.
 
What part of "The same could be said for post Iraq 1991 conflicts for the West as well" did you feel didn't capture this point?
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
What part of "The same could be said for post Iraq 1991 conflicts for the West as well" did you feel didn't capture this point?
Click to expand...
The bit in the middle.

Sorry, my bad, you did mention it. Although Iraq 1991 wasn't a anywhere near a peer fight either.
 
Until the allied air campaign at the beginning of Operation Desert Storm maybe. After the US dropped 88,500 tons of bombs, targeting military and civilian infrastructure, Iraq and it's armed forces were a wreck.
 

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