"Yama" wrote in message
...

"Keith Willshaw" wrote in message
...
"Yama" wrote in message
...
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.

Falklands war was a colonial war, type of conflict where professional
armies
perform better. Do you think Brits could have invaded Argentina mainland?
Didn't think so either.


Which is irrelevant, the fact is a small number of professional
British troops defeated a larger conscript force in strong
defensive positions and they did this several thousand miles
from home.

As for Republican Guards putting up a fight, I seem to have missed it. In
more recent war most resistance came from militias. In DS RG was more
involved, but even then their performance was not markedly better than
that
of some regular army units.


They seem to have been somewhat better than the bulk
conscript divisions

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.

Scale of the WW2 was such that it was simply impossible to recruit enough
professionals to perform the tasks. Again, this is not in at all against
my
point.


Nor mine, I recall agreeing that conscription is necessary
for large scale high intensity conflicts


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

In other words, pretty similar training period as what equivalent
conscripts
receive.


I dont believe many army conscripts get 32 weeks of training but even
assuming
they do thats pretty expensive if the guy is only in the army for a year
or even two.


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.

Where does it say that conscripts have to be ill trained? Have you ever
SEEN
an European conscript army? For example, German conscripts routinely used
to
win NATO tank crew competitions. IIRC US Army managed to win once.


Competitons of course involve all nations putting their best crews
forward, I'd be interested to see what the average performance
looks like.

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.

Um, do you seriously think this is true for all conscript armies? I
certainly know _very well_ how to clean and maintain my rifle and I wasn't
even an infantryman.


Its symptomatic of what happens when an army has to process
more men than it has the resources to train and equip properly.
This was the case in the Argentine forces and from the reports
that have come out I suspect it holds true for the Russian
army today.

Its certainly true that conscript armies CAN be extremely
competent but that doesnt come cheaply. The Swiss
and Scandinavians certainly seem to have good
home defence forces but that is built on around an active
reserve system with the conscription being essentially
viewed as training for the reserves.

In the main the opinion among many military leaders
is that a small professional force is more useful
in todays environment than a larger conscript army.

Keith