"Yama" wrote in message
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"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
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"Yama" wrote in message
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I agree with your main point (professional army better for Russia now)
but
honestly, couldn't we put this "conscripts no use in modern warfare"
crap
to
rest? It sort of gets tiresome seeing it repeated everywhere with no
basis
whatsoever.

Apart from the experience of the last 30 years during which
conscript armies havent done terribly well in combat
in comparison with professional forces.

And what relevant experience would that be?

I'll hazard a guess that you refer to for example, Desert Storm. Bzzt,
wrong: main combat force of Iraqi army - the Republican Guards - were a
volunteer professional force. That didn't seem to help them.


Incorrect

I was thinking of the Argentines in the Falklands but since
you mention the Republican guard they were in fact
regarded as the main threat and at lest put up a fight.

Conscripts have their place in large scale high intensity warfare
and an active militia with universal service such as that maintained
by the Swiss or Noorwegians may well have its place but its notable
that even those European nations that traditionally used conscription
are
tending
to move to a volunteer military. Its particularly difficult to see
how you can maintain the required standard in techinical services
such as the air force or navy.

Tasks requiring signifant technical expertise are manned by professional
soldiers in both conscript and professional armies. That situation has not
changed a bit since WW2.

This is untrue, during WW2 many of those technical tasks were
done by conscripts, they had to be, the regulars provided the
training and leadership cadres.

This does not mean that conscripts do not have a
place in those services in supporting tasks. Even in all-pro forces, most
mechanics etc actually receive pretty minimal training in any case, so
from
skill level point it's totally irrelevant whether one is a draftee or
volunteer.


If you join the British Army as a REME Mechanic you'll get
12 weeks of basic training followed by up to 19 weeks
of specialist training to get you to a basic proficiency level

Further courses ranging from 2 to 11 weeks will be available as your carreer
progresses and and senior NCO's may end up on the Military
Plant Foreman course which runs for a year.

For officer entrants a common route is the 46 week Professional
Engineer Training course

In any event France ,Portugal,Spain and Italy are all in the process
of abolishing conscription and Germany is reducing the length
of military service.

That's because their requirements have changed, not because of some
fundamental change in nature of warfare. If your requirement is to defend
your nation against unwelcome tourists, a conscript army is generally
better. If your requirement is to subdue natives few thousand km's away
from
your homeland, professional force is better.


In fact the balance of skills needed HAS changed, while the poor bloody
infantry are still the backbone of any army a regiment made up
of soldiers who are trained to act on their own initiative, have a mix
of skills and are well trained will always have an advantage over
ill trained conscripts. One of the big problems the Argentines hit
in the field was that their soldiers were used to returning
their weapons to the armoury for cleaning and maintenance.
This became a problem when soldiers not only didnt know how
to clean their rifles and clear jams but didnt even have cleaning kits.

Keith