Strongest Army in the world?

[K.I.L.E.R]

China AFAIK has the most numbers.

Nth Korea, AFAIK are pretty strong especially if they have nuclear weapons.

Not sure if the USA have the world's strongest army. They are the most technologically advanced military in the world (I think) but I don't think that necessarily makes them the strongest.

Anyone care to comment/correct?

I hope I don't have to mother you guys here. You people are supposedly mature enough NOT to get into flame wars. The last thing I want to do is BEG John or another mod/admin to shut down the thread because one member decides to act like a 10 year old.

 

[Nick[FM]]

Finland? IIRC we have the biggest army / population. Dunno if we would have the strongest though..

 

[horvendile]

When I did my military service there was a new conscript who was ridiculously strong and about as large as a small cottage. That in combination with the green uniform rendered him being called "The Hulk". He had problems with his back and dropped out though, so I guess it isn't Sweden.

 

[Stefan Payne]

Hard to say.

You need an really good trained Army, the US isn't it, they're 'somtimes' shot a friend.

Germany has a very strong part of the army but they are a little less to win a war (i donno, maybe 100), its called KSK.

But i don't think we are talking about special forces

 

[BoardBonobo]

The biggest must be China.
The most capable, America?
The best trained, Britain.

Most capable of world domination... hare krishna. They already control the airports and subways

 

[covermye]

You need an really good trained Army, the US isn't it, they're 'somtimes' shot a friend.

This isn't a flame, but if you think there's a military in the world that wouldn't, doesn't, or hasn't had some form of friendly fire incident in any sort of medium-large scale battle, you're sadly mistaken. It's a fact war that you have to deal with this. We're human. We'll always have friendly fire to calculate for and deal with...

Write me off as an ignorant American as I'm sure you will, but I don't see another military (when we talk about the military from top-bottom, Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, National Guard all inclusive) even remotely as well trained as ours. Argue special forces all you want, but as a whole, it's pretty incredible the structure and training our military possesses.

-Chris

 

[MrsSkywalker]

US-
Army
Navy
Marines
Air Force
Reserves
National Guard
Coast Guard
Green Berets
Navy SEALs
Rangers
Delta Force...to name a few of our armed forces divisions.

There are many countries with more than adequete armed forces. China has an excellent land force, however are weak in their air forces and almost laughable in their idea of a navy. Great Britian is very well trained, and I'd say pretty close to being as technologically advanced as the US, but they just don't have the numbers of soldiers the US has. The Aussies are great at fighting, but again don't have the numbers of soldiers the US has, and they don't have the scope of equipment the US uses.

There is no stronger military force than the US. Period. You can argue it until you are blue in the face, but the US is the super power of militaries.

 

[Captain Chickenpants]

I think the issue that Stefan was pointing out that the percentage of casualties from friendly fire against the total casualties taken seems rather high. In the first Gulf war, the UK lost more troops to US friendly fire than they did to the Iraqis. I have no idea what the situation was this time around, but I do recall hearing several friendly fire incidents, obviously these are more widely reported than casualties from actual fighting so it is not something you can easily judge.

I have always been under the impression that the British armed forces are considered extremely well trained (this from a father from the Royal Marines, and a brother in the Royal Signals ).

CC

 

[London Geezer]

THIS WHOLE THREAD IS ....
Strongest Army?!?!?! what are you people on about? war is not a computer game... jesus christ....

 

[covermye]

I think the issue that Stefan was pointing out that the percentage of casualties from friendly fire against the total casualties taken seems rather high. In the first Gulf war, the UK lost more troops to US friendly fire than they did to the Iraqis. I have no idea what the situation was this time around, but I do recall hearing several friendly fire incidents, obviously these are more widely reported than casualties from actual fighting so it is not something you can easily judge.

I'd attribute the super-low casualties of coalition forces due to enemy fire to their superior training and overall power. This is what makes the ratio of friendly fire casualties - to - total causalties seem high, not necessarily a high friendly fire incidence. Would you rather we lost a couple of thousand troops to enemy combatants so this ratio wasn't so high?

Many "friendly" casualties weren't necessarily "friendly fire" at all, actually. Things like helicopter crashes aren't "friendly fire", although they did take quite a few lives of coalition forces. What does a helicopter malfunction have to do with training, though?

 

[Mariner]

The feeling in the UK is that US troops are well equipped, extremely well-motivated and pretty well-trained but, perhaps, a bit too trigger-happy. After all, the phrase "Gung Ho" was coined by US troops!

Personally, I think that the trigger-happy problem comes about from the US gun culture where anyone can access high powered weaponry and thus the US troops are less likely to think first and shoot later. UK troops on the other hand will probably never have even touched a gun before joining the armed forces and are therefore likely to be more reticent in their use. I think that, perhaps, this is one of the reasons that UK troops seem to have a good reputation in "peace-keeping" roles as opposed to many other countries.

All IMHO, of course. 8)

 

[Sxotty]

I have always been under the impression that the British armed forces are considered extremely well trained (this from a father from the Royal Marines, and a brother in the Royal Signals ).

CC

Remember when the to UK helicopters crashed into one anothe killing 14? The reason the US creates more FF casulties is b/c the US has more people fighting. The reason 33 (I think) UK soldiers are dead, and over 100 US casulties are simply related to the number of people there.

Both our forces are extremely competent, and extremely well trained. The more deadly your weapons the more likely you are going to have FF casulties b/c a small mistake sometimes made by a computer like the patriots can kill someone imeadiately.

 

[Gollum]

While I consider the topic of this thread a bit odd its also interesting. To answer the question, I'd say the US hands down, its just no contest. No single army in the world would be capable of defeating the US armed forces as far as traditional warfare is concerned. Its not the sheer size of the US forces (they certainly are pretty big though), but the level of technological superiority, funding and training combined. Like MrsSkywalker pointed out its also that unlike other countries the US got all their bases covered, there are next to no weaknesses. Some interesting figures: the US military budget is higher than Russia's total DGP; the US military budget is as large as those of the next 20 nations combined and over 6 times as high as the second largest (Russia).

China has numbers but not (yet?) the equipment and technology, Japan has smaller forces but more equipment (esp. air and naval forces) than China AFAIK. Russia still has a lot of know how and what can probably still be called the world's second largest war machine, but even though the Russian government spends about 20% of its DGP (!!!) on the remains of the red army, it still is in slow but steady decay and dire need of modernization. The UK and France probably come closest to the US in regards to technology and training, but the sheer numbers and hardware isn't there. Germany is pretty much a sitting duck, the level of technology in some areas is good and the special forces are top notch, but overall training and mobility are rather lacking.

Huge standing military forces today are pretty much a leftover from past times IMO. And while the global military spending has gone down as much as 50% over the past decade and will likely stay down there (except for a few possible exceptions in Asia), the US' is rising again and plans are to continue this trend. The threats of the coming century are hardly best met with traditional large military bodies (or expensive big-ass cold-war-relic weapon platforms like the pentagon has in mind), but rather small, highly specialized, well equiped and trained special forces as well as increased intelligence efforts. I think military bodies worldwide need to undergo significant structural changes to adress the threats of this century. The traditional armed forces are not obsolete, but should be downsized in favour of such smaller specialized forces which would also have a much higher readiness level.

 

[zidane1strife]

There is no stronger military force than the US. Period. You can argue it until you are blue in the face, but the US is the super power of militaries.

I second, as technology continues to hasten its progress, it will only get stronger.... still I see a few prob.s with the US military and its budget...

The first prob. I see, right now, is they're spending too much on pathetic junk(aka modern military equipment), and not enough in R&D. R&D should be 75+% of the budget IMHO... at least that way it also benefits society, and not just stockpiles cr@p that will be antiquated in a few decades... I mean like everybody knows just a small portion of that budget is truly needed to significantly keep-up or surpass any other country financially in terms of military budget.

The second is the cost of going to war. If I didn't hear wrong, going against Irak costed around $100B... and that was against a small unorganized, pathetically equipped, badly trained force... How much would a war against china, or a coalition of nations cost us? A trillion or two? I certainly hope not...

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

A trillion or two? I certainly hope not...

taxpayers =

Need I say more?

 

[Vince]

The United States is also the only nation that can project substantial force upon any spot on the globe. All of the countries listed as "superior" aren't capable of even a sustained non-regional conflict - the exception being the British to an extent.

I can't help but find it ironic that people place China infront of the US based on sheer numbers when, infact, the Chinese would have to struggle (if they could) onto the island of Taiwan before their numbers work. Even then, Korea showed that attacking en masse is ineffective once the origional shock-value ends. With todays electronic battlefield and RT survailence from systems like JSTAR and KH-12, there's no way numbers > technology as it did during the first few weeks of Chinese intervention in Korea.

 

[nelg]

The U.S.. Although per capita the strongest might be Israel (practise makes perfect).

 

[MrsSkywalker]

The second is the cost of going to war. If I didn't hear wrong, going against Irak costed around $100B... and that was against a small unorganized, pathetically equipped, badly trained force... How much would a war against china, or a coalition of nations cost us? A trillion or two? I certainly hope not...

Depends on how we choose to go to war. We could easily wipe out an entire country's population in a day. I don't know how other USers feel, but I for one am willing to pay more in taxes to fund the development/implementation of tech savvy weapons that will spare the lives of as many innocents as possible. It's the tech that costs.

Vince:

I can't help but find it ironic that people place China infront of the US based on sheer numbers when, infact, the Chinese would have to struggle (if they could) onto the island of Taiwan before their numbers work. Even then, Korea showed that attacking en masse is ineffective once the origional shock-value ends.

I think I see them as such a threat on the ground b/c of the Korean conflict. We were totally stalemated. They couldn't defeat us, but they held us. Kind of leaves a strong impression in a country's mind. Um, M*A*S*H didn't help, either

 

[zidane1strife]

Depends on how we choose to go to war. We could easily wipe out an entire country's population in a day.

uhmm, you`re talking about nukes right?

If so that`s obviously not an option(unless you want nuclear holocaust...) against many of the other nations out there...

 

[MrsSkywalker]

uhmm, you`re talking about nukes right?

Not necessarily nukes. Look at Iraq. Pretty average sized country, right? Through a campaign of bombing, missles, atomic bombs...yeah, it would be more than possible to do it without nukes. Not for the larger countries. 24 hours is a lot of time with the weapons we have to "play" with.