Armchair General's DonbAss Derailed Discussion Thread (Topics Include History, Traps, and the Ongoing Slavic Civil War plus much much more)

[Tiamat]

Eh, I knew there was a list of battles in Vietnam US lost and I took the first link I found as I didn't remember the original one.

Besides, it's not like finding battles where one side failed to achieve objectives and listing them requires much brainpower. Understanding why they were lost on the other hand...

Fair enough, your argument isn't without merit of course. I would LIKE to think most are savvy and learned enough to know the US obviously didn't win every battle it faced, much like any military and there's always lessons to be learned. I don't know who's pushing that concept the US never lost a fight as there's documented examples of battles it did indeed lose, it sounds more like a strawman argument to me. Unfortunately, you don't really learn without failure and mistakes made, and a lot of lessons within the US officer and enlisted corps, and military academies are based on that. One of the reasons the US military is so good at logistics nowadays because it learned the hard way over the past century or so just how much logistics is required and involved in any conflict.

 

[strunkenwhite]

It's honestly hard to tell which side is winning at this point, and I predict it'll be awhile until anyone can accurately assess who will come out on top. It's been pretty much a stalemate for months on end now, and that's only because the entire weight of the west is bearing down on Russia and supplying Ukraine to the gills. If this were a true 1-v-1 fight Ukraine would've lost HARD by now.

Is your hypothetical "true 1v1" counting from 2022 or from 2014? If 2014, probably, or at least I don't care to argue the contrary. If 2022, while it's true that it's very unlikely that Ukraine would be pushing back Russia's previous gains as has been the case in reality (and which is currently happening despite your claim of stalemate), I don't think Russia would have been able to decisively beat even a Ukraine that was hung out to dry on Z-day. Russian forces would still have faltered in the siege of Kyiv. Ukraine would probably be forced to focus on continuing to bleed Russian forces trying to advance rather than pushing them back from previous gains. It would, I imagine, be an extremely bloody test of endurance that I doubt Russia could completely win, even if they managed to successfully make it to the "disastrous occupation" stage of the conflict. However, Ukraine might in this alternate reality be willing to bite the bullet and sign over Crimea and the Donbass, if there were some reason (like imminent NATO membership) that they thought doing so would not be followed by another invasion a decade hence.

Having said all that...

For the vast majority of the first couple months it was a true 1 v 1 as western supplies didn't arrive till months into it.
Ans guess what happened

Ukrainian forces were able to use their supplies in the way they did because they knew more was coming from the west. If that had not been the case they would have had to make some harder decisions.

 

[Tiamat]

The US military is nigh invincible in battle these days. As has been said numerous times, its crucial flaw is that politicians with no military experience don't let the actual soldiers do their jobs properly.

As the Romans can attest, when wielded properly, the "hit everything with a hammer" strategy can work very well indeed.

Eh, talk to any professional officer in the US military, an honest conversation will tell you they never assume nigh invincibility in any conflict. It's just better insurance to bring overwhelming firepower if the proverbial gauntlet gets thrown. The more you use, the less you lose. Ideally, anyway, never guaranteed.

 

[strunkenwhite]

The United States started the War of 1812 with the nominal goal of forcing an end to British impression of allegedly-American sailors and the actual goal of taking advantage of the war in Europe to score territorial gains against British colonies in America, and the end result was the U.S. all but crawling to the negotiating table to beg for status quo ante and the British shrugging and not bothering to impose any additional concessions because it wasn't even important.

Are you Canadian or something? The view that the US was so hot to annex Canada that it was not just a major factor in the decision to go to war but the overriding one is, to say the least, not a consensus view. Of course, if one is going to war with Britain in the early 1800s as the USA, one isn't going to just ignore the opportunity to invade Canada as a potentially war-winning measure when the alternative is going toe to toe with the Royal Navy.

More than wanting Canada for the sake of having Canada, more Americans wanted to force Britain to stop impressing sailors from American ships (many of which, to be fair, were British emigrants and/or deserters); force Britain to stop supporting Indians resisting US expansion into the Northwest Territory and the Louisiana Territory (American, or at the very least not British, land in North America); and force Britain to stop interfering in American trade with (Napoleonic) Europe.

I also think that if the Americans were indeed "crawling" and "begging" the British would have likely managed to get some favorable resolutions to disputed territory in what is now Maine and Minnesota, which noticeably did not happen.

 

[Aldarion]

Fair enough, your argument isn't without merit of course. I would LIKE to think most are savvy and learned enough to know the US obviously didn't win every battle it faced, much like any military and there's always lessons to be learned. I don't know who's pushing that concept the US never lost a fight as there's documented examples of battles it did indeed lose, it sounds more like a strawman argument to me. Unfortunately, you don't really learn without failure and mistakes made, and a lot of lessons within the US officer and enlisted corps, and military academies are based on that. One of the reasons the US military is so good at logistics nowadays because it learned the hard way over the past century or so just how much logistics is required and involved in any conflict.

I think it might be overcompensation or overreaction. Left I think often used Vietnam to "prove" that Communism stronk, US sucks, US military is weak and would be overcome by stronk Soviet forces... and then you have reaction to that which tries to "prove" that US invincible, US military undefeated, war lost by purely political factors...

Problem is that both positions are utter bollocks, and for multiple reasons. First, as Russians are finding out just now, a nation under arms is an incredibly difficult opponent to defeat. Attacker will, for reasons of logistics, only ever be able to mobilize a fraction of resources relative to overall resources available compared to what defender can bring to bear. And democratic societies are especially screwed in that regard as wars are a difficult sell, and so they will usually only go to wars that were either forced on them, or where a quick and bloodless victory is basically guaranteed. So while it is indeed true that US won far more than it lost tactically, and that war was lost largely due to political factors, saying - as Zachowon seems to imply - that war in Vietnam was lost solely due to political unrest in the US is essentially a revamping of the old Nazi "stab in the back" myth.

Thing is that winning battles is useless. And that is something US leadership in Vietnam completely ignored. They literally used "battles won" and "kill-loss ratio" as a measure of success. But that is placing the cart before the horse, and I frankly have to ask what exactly those guys were smoking. Must have been some really strong stuff. Because, as I said: you win by achieving objectives, and ultimate objectives of every war are political. And because of this, while attacker has to win, defender only needs not to lose - and to do that, he just needs to survive, even if he loses every single battle. You win by achieving strategic objectives, and battles are merely a tool of that. That is why the Tet Offensive was really a defeat for the US, despite the fact that it was actually US victory by all conventional attritional measurements: it proved that neither the Viet Cong nor the North Vietnam were anywhere close to being defeated, despite all the US Generals' statements to the contrary.

So this:

Militarily.
Don't mess up that with everywhere aspect.
We have beaten, militarily since we became a power, every nation we faced.
The military winning battles did not win us some of the wars, but they showed that if we wanted to we could have.

Even if true, completely misses the point and leads to a false conclusion. Because war, ultimately, is a political affair, not a military one. So to say that

The military winning battles did not win us some of the wars, but they showed that if we wanted to we could have.

is false, unless Zachowon is implying that the US will have been both willing and able to engage in literal campaigns of genocide in some of these cases.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

The Tet Offensive was an unmitigated disaster for the North. The Vietcon was all but spent after that as I understand.

But in the end America did actually win the War by brining the North to the table. How it did that was by sacking up and carpet bombing North Vietnam until it came crawling. Peace was agreed, the yanks left, South Vietnam was too corrupt to save itself, and the rest is history.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

Hell, many of the American ill-disciplined militia that went up there broke ranks and scattered when they realized that the Red Coats were moving south, and that their glorious little "shock and awe" campaign failed.

It is often a great source of belly aching laughter to think of the vaunted, heroic, yank militia going up against God damn Peninsula War veterans.

 

[Aldarion]

The Tet Offensive was an unmitigated disaster for the North. The Vietcon was all but spent after that as I understand.

But in the end America did actually win the War by brining the North to the table. How it did that was by sacking up and carpet bombing North Vietnam until it came crawling. Peace was agreed, the yanks left, South Vietnam was too corrupt to save itself, and the rest is history.

It was a military disaster for the VietCong. It essentially ceased to exist.

Nevertheless, it was a massive strategic success, as it essentially debunked the US narrative that North was about to be defeated.

 

[ShadowArxxy]

Are you Canadian or something? The view that the US was so hot to annex Canada that it was not just a major factor in the decision to go to war but the overriding one is, to say the least, not a consensus view. Of course, if one is going to war with Britain in the early 1800s as the USA, one isn't going to just ignore the opportunity to invade Canada as a potentially war-winning measure when the alternative is going toe to toe with the Royal Navy.

More than wanting Canada for the sake of having Canada, more Americans wanted to force Britain to stop impressing sailors from American ships (many of which, to be fair, were British emigrants and/or deserters); force Britain to stop supporting Indians resisting US expansion into the Northwest Territory and the Louisiana Territory (American, or at the very least not British, land in North America); and force Britain to stop interfering in American trade with (Napoleonic) Europe.

I also think that if the Americans were indeed "crawling" and "begging" the British would have likely managed to get some favorable resolutions to disputed territory in what is now Maine and Minnesota, which noticeably did not happen.

Oh yes, the issue of impressment was so important that the U.S. didn't even dare bring it up at the peace negotiations.

It literally doesn't matter how you slice America's supposed motives -- the outcome of the War of 1812 was that despite popular confidence in starting the war because they believed that Britain was in a gravely weakened condition, American military forces abjectly failed to secure any of the strategic objectives they wanted.

The outcome of 1812 cannot be interpreted as anything but strategic defeat and abject humiliation for the United States, and complete strategic success for Great Britain.

 

[Megadeath]

70,000 would absolutely be considered a small city here in the US. Town makes me think of someplace with, like, 10,000 people or so.

I'll grant, you and others are right that it can by some measures be considered a city. It doesn't meet other definitions though. Depending on what definition you go with, it might fail on grounds of importance, or because it's one contiguous urban area lacking suburbs, or other standards.

More importantly though, the issue with calling it a city is one of connotations. The post initially responded to seemed to be trying to imply bakhmut was a dense urban environment that had been turned into some kind of fortress. In reality, it's built more like a suburb itself. It's also assigning more importance to the value of taking or holding it than it deserves in itself. The battle there was indeed important in it's own way, but that it was there really wasn't.

Perhaps it's pointless or silly for me to quibble over, but having lived primarily around places like London, Amsterdam and Sydney, when I hear city in the context it was used, it just feels like over aggrandisement and exaggeration to support an already erroneous point.

 

[Bacle]

I don't know who's pushing that concept the US never lost a fight as there's documented examples of battles it did indeed lose,

Zach has, repeatedly and with great gusto.

Mention things like Bataan, Little Bighorn, or well, the whole of the War of 1812, and his motard blinders and kneejerk need to defend the honor of the US Army from any criticism engages.

 

[Zachowon]

Eh, talk to any professional officer in the US military, an honest conversation will tell you they never assume nigh invincibility in any conflict. It's just better insurance to bring overwhelming firepower if the proverbial gauntlet gets thrown. The more you use, the less you lose. Ideally, anyway, never guaranteed.

They always assume maximum amount of casualties.
Look at the estimates for what desert storm was supposed to be.

I think it might be overcompensation or overreaction. Left I think often used Vietnam to "prove" that Communism stronk, US sucks, US military is weak and would be overcome by stronk Soviet forces... and then you have reaction to that which tries to "prove" that US invincible, US military undefeated, war lost by purely political factors...

Problem is that both positions are utter bollocks, and for multiple reasons. First, as Russians are finding out just now, a nation under arms is an incredibly difficult opponent to defeat. Attacker will, for reasons of logistics, only ever be able to mobilize a fraction of resources relative to overall resources available compared to what defender can bring to bear. And democratic societies are especially screwed in that regard as wars are a difficult sell, and so they will usually only go to wars that were either forced on them, or where a quick and bloodless victory is basically guaranteed. So while it is indeed true that US won far more than it lost tactically, and that war was lost largely due to political factors, saying - as Zachowon seems to imply - that war in Vietnam was lost solely due to political unrest in the US is essentially a revamping of the old Nazi "stab in the back" myth.

Thing is that winning battles is useless. And that is something US leadership in Vietnam completely ignored. They literally used "battles won" and "kill-loss ratio" as a measure of success. But that is placing the cart before the horse, and I frankly have to ask what exactly those guys were smoking. Must have been some really strong stuff. Because, as I said: you win by achieving objectives, and ultimate objectives of every war are political. And because of this, while attacker has to win, defender only needs not to lose - and to do that, he just needs to survive, even if he loses every single battle. You win by achieving strategic objectives, and battles are merely a tool of that. That is why the Tet Offensive was really a defeat for the US, despite the fact that it was actually US victory by all conventional attritional measurements: it proved that neither the Viet Cong nor the North Vietnam were anywhere close to being defeated, despite all the US Generals' statements to the contrary.

So this:

Even if true, completely misses the point and leads to a false conclusion. Because war, ultimately, is a political affair, not a military one. So to say that

is false, unless Zachowon is implying that the US will have been both willing and able to engage in literal campaigns of genocide in some of these cases.

War is a military and political affair as the military are the ones that make the politicians able to make thier ideas and arguments.
A war can be one solely by the military, it can not be solely one by tbe politicians

Zach has, repeatedly and with great gusto.

Mention things like Bataan, Little Bighorn, or well, the whole of the War of 1812, and his motard blinders and kneejerk need to defend the honor of the US Army from any criticism engages.

Bataan was a loss, so was Big Horn, and 1812 was a stalemate.
Maybe Canada should look back now and go "maybe we should have let ourselves be conqured"

 

[Jormungandr]

They always assume maximum amount of casualties.
Look at the estimates for what desert storm was supposed to be.

War is a military and political affair as the military are the ones that make the politicians able to make thier ideas and arguments.
A war can be one solely by the military, it can not be solely one by the politicians

Bataan was a loss, so was Big Horn, and 1812 was a stalemate.
Maybe Canada should look back now and go "maybe we should have let ourselves be conquered"

Mate, 1812 wasn't a "stalemate". The US lost.

Even though things returned to the "status quo" afterwards (which is why modern day Americans shriek "it was a draw/stalemate!" to soothe their sore arses), the Americans at that time failed in everything they set out to achieve. They were humiliated and embarrassed on the world stage, lost vital assets (such as ships, people, supplies, and weapons), and their own goddamn White House was burned to the ground. The very symbol of the American government, looted and burned to ashes.

Their little imperialist land-grab from the British Empire resulted in their proverbial teeth being kicked in. America was humiliated and came to the negotiating table with their tails between their legs.

Stop drinking the kool-aid. America lost 1812. Deal with it.

 

[Lord Sovereign]

Mate, 1812 wasn't a "stalemate". The US lost.

Even though things returned to the "status quo" afterwards (which is why people obsessively shriek "it was a draw/stalemate!" to soothe their sore arses), the Americans at that time failed in everything they set out to achieve. They were humiliated and embarrassed on the world stage, lost vital assets (such as ships, people, supplies, and weapons), and their own goddamn White House was burned to the ground. The very symbol of the American government, looted and burned to ashes.

Their little imperialist land-grab from the British Empire resulted in their proverbial teeth being kicked in.

Stop drinking the kool-aid. America lost 1812. Deal with it.

And note how for the next century, our treacherous former colony never dared challenge us again? It’s quite the coincidence…

 

[Jormungandr]

And note how for the next century, our treacherous former colony never dared challenge us again? It’s quite the coincidence…

Well, the relationship between the UK and America became one of basically just keeping out of each others' shit, to frenemies, to sort-of friends with both sides being duplicitous sometimes, to friends, to allies, to... whatever our confusing relationship is today (since America is the world hegemon now).

But they did give up any ambitions of taking any British territory after 1812, haha.

 

[Zachowon]

It helped us lose reliant trade with the Brits, as well as the fact that it basically allowed the US to take the west of the country.
Allowing us to take the reign if the world hegemon from our good old dad.

 

[Bacle]

It helped us lose reliant trade with the Brits, as well as the fact that it basically allowed the US to take the west of the country.
Allowing us to take the reign if the world hegemon from our good old dad.

France and Napoleon have more to do with US expansion and success than any 'decoupling' the War of 1812 accomplished with the Brits.

I mean really, when you get down to it, without France there would be no US, period, and without France occupying the Brits attention, the War of 1812 could have gone a lot, lot worse for us.

 

[Zachowon]

The native threat was no longer a major threat after the war of 1812 and allowed us to have expansion because the brits were no longer supplying them

 

[Buba]

without France there would be no US, period, and without France occupying the Brits attention, the War of 1812 could have gone a lot, lot worse for us.

And without France selling Louisiana, the USA would had never expanded beyond the Mississippi. Today it'd be a country like OTL Germany x2, a Great Power, but never a superpower.

 

[Sailor.X]

Mate, 1812 wasn't a "stalemate". The US lost.

Even though things returned to the "status quo" afterwards (which is why modern day Americans shriek "it was a draw/stalemate!" to soothe their sore arses), the Americans at that time failed in everything they set out to achieve. They were humiliated and embarrassed on the world stage, lost vital assets (such as ships, people, supplies, and weapons), and their own goddamn White House was burned to the ground. The very symbol of the American government, looted and burned to ashes.

Their little imperialist land-grab from the British Empire resulted in their proverbial teeth being kicked in. America was humiliated and came to the negotiating table with their tails between their legs.

Stop drinking the kool-aid. America lost 1812. Deal with it.

Y'all seem to forget this happened right after that event.



God smited the hell out of those who burnt the White House. Funny how this always gets memory holed.