How would our soldiers today do in WW2?

Mattie G Indahouse · December 08, 2014, 06:48:05 PM

I'm not talking tech wise I'm talking about training wise. If the soldiers today got the same exact training we do now but it's based on the tech they used back then would they still be as effective? For example would our soldiers today be able to storm the beaches during D-Day under the same conditions and still have the landings successful?

YouTube

aREALgod · December 08, 2014, 06:50:27 PM

Idk, from what I hear the training today is easier than back in the day. Softer, apparently.

Mordo · December 08, 2014, 06:54:46 PM

A lot better I presume. Training is much more rigorous and strictly enforced nowadays. Not to mention that we now place heavy emphasis on fitness and physicality, whereas WWII era soldiers smoked and drank to their hearts content.

Mattie G Indahouse · December 08, 2014, 06:55:57 PM

Quote from: aTALLmidget on December 08, 2014, 06:50:27 PM

Idk, from what I hear the training today is easier than back in the day. Softer, apparently.

Which is pretty much why I'm asking this. I know the training today is easier and the instructors are more toned down. One of the things the got our soldiers through something like this had to be how difficult the training was. They were probably hard on you because they wanted you to live or not brake as easily during combat.

Kinder Graham · December 08, 2014, 06:57:59 PM

Training seems to be geared towards more urban today, so a scenario of storm an open field with not much cover doesn't seem to work all that well. Military today also feels more micro-managed than it was back pre-Vietnam, so you'd have troops sitting while Washington made the next move

I can be wrong though

Girl of Mystery · December 08, 2014, 06:59:37 PM

Considering they weren't well trained or physically fit back then, I'd say soldiers of today would do better.

aREALgod · December 08, 2014, 07:01:20 PM

Quote from: Zen'sButtSlaveLemön on December 08, 2014, 06:59:37 PM

Considering they weren't well trained or physically fit back then, I'd say soldiers of today would do better.

>not being physically fit

lol. They certainly were, the only difference is they're more strict today about physical standards.

DAS B00T x2 · December 08, 2014, 07:04:42 PM

Rather than just yelling at you, classes are given on how to handle the guy three feet to your left exploding in a ball of fire and intestines, then how to handle your wife leaving you mid deployment, and then how to handle your alcoholism because you fell asleep during the prior two classes instead of paying attention to the lesson. Then you get yelled at for falling asleep during that goddamn powerpoint presentation.

Despite the talk you see on Facebook about the "new army" from guys who think being infantry during a peacetime when the only motherfuckers with combat patches were the grumpy old Vietnam vets who were one year from retiring with their 20 makes them badass, I think it's more effective this way.

Ushan · December 08, 2014, 07:58:36 PM

While I have know idea about what I'm talking about, I'd suspect that our current day military would be more effective than our military during WWII, because the military has had seventy years to improve on its training methods, seventy years for advances in the understanding of how the human body and mind works and how to train the two of them to operate in a war zone, and seventy years in which we have had several wars since WWII giving the us a greater chance to learn new strategies in modern combat. All of which the WWII Era US military didn't have and we do, even if you are excluding technology from our list of advantages.

That said, I'm mostly pulling things out of my ass and have never even so much s looked at a US Armed Forces brochure.