Beth.Fulton@csiro.au schrieb:
> Thanks for all the examples guys
One example that hasn't been mentioned so far for a force beating one
with more modern equipment are all the major Arab-Israeli Wars. From
1948 to the Invasion in Lebanon in the 1980's, the Israelis consistently beat
Arab forces, even though the Israelis often had to
make do with obsolete or refurbished / upgraded equipment while the
Arabs had more and more modern weapons.
The difference may not amount to what we think of as a tech-level, and
in spots teh Israelis had top-of teh line equipment, but I think it is
fair to describe the Arab armies as generally better equipped. It was better
Israeli military skills and determination that enabled them to overcome that
handicap.
Greetings Karl Heinz
Hu-raa! Tactics, desire and good intell will beat technology alone.
KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de wrote:Beth.Fulton@csiro.au schrieb:
> Thanks for all the examples guys
One example that hasn't been mentioned so far for a force beating one
with more modern equipment are all the major Arab-Israeli Wars. From
1948 to the Invasion in Lebanon in the 1980's, the Israelis consistently beat
Arab forces, even though the Israelis often had to
make do with obsolete or refurbished / upgraded equipment while the
Arabs had more and more modern weapons.
The difference may not amount to what we think of as a tech-level, and
in spots teh Israelis had top-of teh line equipment, but I think it is
fair to describe the Arab armies as generally better equipped. It was better
Israeli military skills and determination that enabled them to overcome that
handicap.
Greetings Karl Heinz
> At 3:09 PM -0700 9/28/04, Charles Lee wrote:
Good technology and atrocious leadership, tactics, doctrine and training.
Why Arabs lose wars.
http://www.biu.ac.il/SOC/besa/meria/journal/2000/issue1/jv4n1a2.html
> On 28 Sep 2004 at 20:26, The GZG Digest wrote:
> From: KH.Ranitzsch@t-online.de
I also didn't mention the American Civil War.
In most battles the Confederates had inferior weapons, with large numbers of
Confederate troops armed with smoothbore muskets while most of their Union
opponents were armed with rifled muskets. The Union were always better
equipped with rifled artillery. You could make a good case that the
Confederacy were a tech level behind the Union as far as rifles and
artillery were concerned, depending -- of course -- on how you define
tech levels. In spite of this deficiency, the Confederacy won a good many
battles, and usually with inferior numbers.
There are several reasons this was not a clear cut case of "low tech beating
high tech". Training during the ACW was abysmal. Troops rarely fired more than
a couple of shots before going into battle for the first
time. Engagement ranges did not take advantage of the rifled musket. Brent
Nosworthy makes the case that a good deal of the problem was training. Troops
were just not properly trained in aiming, limiting the range at which they
were effective with the rifled muskets. Most engagements were fought at ranges
that didn't put the smoothbore muskets
at a severe disadvantage. In some cases, such as the cornfield at Antietam,
some troops with the older smoothbore muskets fired "buck and ball", which was
essentially a load of buckshot and a bullet combined. These were incredibly
nasty at close range.
Rifled artillery was at a disadvantage on the battlefield. While more accurate
than smoothbore, it was still limited to effectively firing at targets it
could see. This limited its effective range. At very close ranges, it was less
effective at firing canister (basically a big shotgun shell). Some of the
canister balls would catch in the rifling and fling off wildly, reducing its
effectiveness. In 1864, Ulysses Grant ordered a
number of rifled guns pulled out of the Army of the Potomac and replaced
with smoothbores.
No major battle had the Confederate troops armed completely with smoothbore
muskets while the Union was armed with rifled muskets. In most major battles
up until 1864, both sides had at least some troops armed with smoothbore
weapons. Thus, at the army level neither army would have
been considered a full tech level ahead of another army. At the tactical
level one side was often better equipped than the other side, but this
advantage was mitigated by the factors listed above and the dense terrain of
the U.S. at that time. This shows, though, that factors other than lopsided
numbers and incompetent commanders can allow the lower technology army to
defeat the higher technology army, particularly where
training, outdated tactics, terrain, and a lack of familiarity with the new
technology come into play.
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