Can you win a war with only light infantry in the 21st century?

airsuperiority said:

I'd say the reason is really being that technology is so advanced that technology today isn't merely just about advance in one element, but an advance on almost all trades. Superior weapons without logistics or maneuverability is pretty much sitting duck, but today not only technology provides the means for each of these, but enhances and brings up the overall standards of the fighting force by a far margin.

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Excellent point. Now I think about, the light infantry may no longer have the kind of advantages normally associated with light infantry when facing a technologically advanced opponent. For instance, speed. Normally speaking, light infantry would depend on fast maneuvers and surprise attacks. Now, would a light infantry on foot move faster than a completely mechanized force? How fast and how long do you have to run to out-maneuver IFVs and tanks going 30 mph? How long can you last with the IFVs and tanks going non-stop forever (theoretically speaking)? Even if the light infantry manages to trap their opponent, can they actually contain them? Without heavy equipment to build roadblocks, how can they stop the IFVs and tanks from bursting out of the entrapment?

Well this is the stuff of movies. I don't think it's realistic because eventually the side with the disadvantage will lose without logistical support. The logistical end is just as important as the guys on front lines in waging a war. If the US military found themselves under these circimstances, you'd probably wouldn't see them involved as much.

A few years ago there was a movie that was greenlit about an enemy who sets off some EMP type weapon over the US and Americans had to fight an invasion with WWII level of weapons. Haven't heard anything about it since so I assume it went nowhere.

airsuperiority said:

I'd say the reason is really being that technology is so advanced that technology today isn't merely just about advance in one element, but an advance on almost all trades. Superior weapons without logistics or maneuverability is pretty much sitting duck, but today not only technology provides the means for each of these, but enhances and brings up the overall standards of the fighting force by a far margin.
2. I'd also think the second reason why better tech doesn't necessarily dictate victory is also upon the gap between both sides. If the gap is far and wide, technology will make a huge difference because the superior force will have access to more options, information, and capabilities that render the inferior force, handicapped and lacking. In other sense, to possess the capabilities make the inferior force "handicapped" by raising the bars. (iphone 4 vs first generation iphone) In contrast, if both sides have access to all the same functions, but just a matter of slightly better quality, then the gaps will not mean much, if anything at all, if levels are close enough. Here, the advantage the superior force enjoys will merely be considered as "luxuries" (iphone 4 vs iphone 4s)

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To a certain extent I agreed with you there, but technology can also hinders the infantry or ground fighting units. There is simply IMO no substitute for on field training. There's no way technology can ever replace any special forces aspects of analyzing the field, the weather, the terrain, time and season, and weather quickly to relay back to the command center or HQ. Sure a UAV could look down at a terrain see what's there, but it can never tell it in 3D in real time like a reconnoiter team in more details such as what gear is the enemy troops caring with them, are they adult or child soldiers, what kind of dress or uniforms are they wearing, what foot gear do they wear (important for assessing how far they can go), do they have armored vehicle and what kind, and most importantly who are the officers or leaders of that group? Today's high tech are great and I like how they help the ground unit to fight better, but at the same time it's taking away too much time for up keeps and maintenance. Any fragile pieces missing during field mission can hinder the GPS unit that the squad or platoon is carrying, plus making sure there is enough batteries (more weight to carry) of different kind for the laptop and other gears.

vesicles said:

even if Mao decided to stay at the 38th, would MacArthur simply stop at that point? Let's not forget. The UN lost the fight in a very humiliating way in 51'. His personality would not allow him to stop after such embarrassing loss. He would want revenge. As a matter of fact, would anyone stop at that point? Would you stop if you led the UN forces? I know I wouldn't. I would feel totally humiliated if I simply stop there.

Actually, now I think about it, I think Mao made a wise decision by pushing further into SK. With a much deeper penetration, the final stopping point was still at the 38th after much back and forth between the PVA and the UN. As the final stopping point was much north to Seoul, we can imagine the new potential stopping point would be much north into the NK territory IF Mao decided to stop at the 38th in '51.

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The US retreat ended at Osan, far south of the 38th parallel. By the end of 1950, the US army was demoralized and the UN made several ceasefire proposals to the Chinese. Had China accepted the ceasefire, I believe the Korean War would have ended right there and then.

That this bitter lesson was incorporated by the PLA is evident in the way they conducted the 1962 Sino-Indian war and the 1979 Sino-Vietnam war: having achieved their objectives, the PLA announced a ceasefire and withdrew.

Although the PVA was able to win battles in early '51 using primarily light infantry, the UN forces didn't suffer heavy casualties because of the ineffectiveness of the weapon systems used by the PVA. And because most of the PVA soldiers were on foot, they couldn't even catch up to the escaping UN troops. So it would be illogical to expect the war would end there even if Mao unilaterally decided to stop. Since the UN had preserved its strength, it would only be logical to expect them to come back with a vengeance, which they did.

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I think that is a rather subjective assessment. The US forces suffered heavy casualties during their retreat.

The battles along the Ch�ongch�on River were a major defeat for the Eighth Army and a mortal blow to the hopes of MacArthur and others for the reunification of Korea by force of arms. The 2d Division alone took almost 4,500 battle casualties from 15 to 30 November, most occurring after the twenty-fifth. It lost almost a third of its strength, along with sixty-four artillery pieces, hundreds of trucks, and nearly all its engineer equipment. While the rest of Eighth Army had not been hit as hard, with the possible exception of the ROK units whose total losses will probably never be known, there was no doubt about the magnitude of the reverse.

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I don't deny that the Chinese suffered many setbacks due to their lack of equipment and technology, but then the idea here is whether a light infantry army *can* overcome a better equipped army despite these disadvantages.

Excellent point. Now I think about, the light infantry may no longer have the kind of advantages normally associated with light infantry when facing a technologically advanced opponent. For instance, speed. Normally speaking, light infantry would depend on fast maneuvers and surprise attacks. Now, would a light infantry on foot move faster than a completely mechanized force? How fast and how long do you have to run to out-maneuver IFVs and tanks going 30 mph? How long can you last with the IFVs and tanks going non-stop forever (theoretically speaking)? Even if the light infantry manages to trap their opponent, can they actually contain them? Without heavy equipment to build roadblocks, how can they stop the IFVs and tanks from bursting out of the entrapment?

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The strength of light infantry isn't speed but mobility. I.E. the ability to go places where tanks and trucks can't. They are also much better at infiltrating behind enemy lines, which was in fact a staple tactic of the PVA during the Korean War.

As for stopping the tanks and IFVs from bursting out of entrapment, I think RPGs would work better than roadblocks.

solarz said:

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The US retreat ended at Osan, far south of the 38th parallel. By the end of 1950, the US army was demoralized and the UN made several ceasefire proposals to the Chinese. Had China accepted the ceasefire, I believe the Korean War would have ended right there and then.

That this bitter lesson was incorporated by the PLA is evident in the way they conducted the 1962 Sino-Indian war and the 1979 Sino-Vietnam war: having achieved their objectives, the PLA announced a ceasefire and withdrew.



I think that is a rather subjective assessment. The US forces suffered heavy casualties during their retreat.

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I don't deny that the Chinese suffered many setbacks due to their lack of equipment and technology, but then the idea here is whether a light infantry army *can* overcome a better equipped army despite these disadvantages.



The strength of light infantry isn't speed but mobility. I.E. the ability to go places where tanks and trucks can't. They are also much better at infiltrating behind enemy lines, which was in fact a staple tactic of the PVA during the Korean War.

As for stopping the tanks and IFVs from bursting out of entrapment, I think RPGs would work better than roadblocks.

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As I've said before, the only way such an infantry army could win is through 3 things, at the same time:
1. pick a situation and place where technological advantages can be greatly nullified
2. got lots of men to bleed
3. the offensive must be decisive, at the very least not to make the technologically superior foes come back for another fight, with better preparation and strategy.

Political will, while critical in just about all situation, is out of context in this "pure military" discussion, unless otherwise announced.

The Korean War isn't that good of an example really but I'd indulge you nonetheless:

Chinese involvement was done beyond the expectations of the UN Coalition, terrain in northern Korea made it difficult for mechanized warfare, technologies in the 50s made it favorable towards the technologically inferior attackers (the PVA practically crawled their way close to the UN lines before launching their attack). In most cases, the PVA either wait / draw the foes to an ambush, or launch human wave charges with artillery support.

And let's face it: the Korean War is largely fought with World War II infrastructures, except for the introduction of jets (but really, just WW2 dogfights in higher speed), medievec helicopter and MASH, everything else is textbook - while the western and Taiwan historians would paint the almost-canon image of ragtags that the PVA was, the disparity between PVA and UN forces ain't as bad as Zulus vs Red Coats...and PVA wisely picked their fights mainly at night or bad weather, further nullify the advantages of UN Coalition airpower support.

A side note: Mao's son died in an air raid, and it was because he disregard the order for fire-and-smoke discipline to cook at daytime, the smoke from the cooking fire was spotted and well...you know the story.

Also, the PVA couldn't chase the retreating UN forces fast enough and their own supply network couldn't catch up (fact: Chinese forces, since the civil war, at times choose to travel light for speed, but that'd make things not favorable if their objectives couldn't be achieved quick enough), thus leave the UN forces managed to retreat, caught a breather, reinforce and push back towards 38th Parallel. From thereon it were stalemate, neither side could easily dislodge the other from dug-in positions in the hills.

But what about NOW?

The closest to textbook example would be Libya, 2011, and I don't feel like to repeat myself here.

How about the Chechen War? Principally the Russians weren't properly prepared, trained or equipped at the first try (couldn't be helped though, Russia was in shambles under that fat old drunk of Boris Yeltsin), so in Grozny we witnessed the "re-enactment of Stalingrad" - alas with modern equipment - and the Russians lost their taste of battle not long after; 2nd try they were better prepared and equipped, utilized firepower and technology, and they won despite it was a pyrite victory.

Wars in the last 20 years were significant in that technological superiority makes the difference in just almost every one of them, inferior side (even if they were mechanized) usually got their ares kicked.

And in the context of this forum, 1st Gulf War served as a wake up call for the Chinese, finally aware the importance of technology that the military modernization at long last got more importance -you might be too young to remember this, but back in the 90s there were still some old guard held out against modernization, some were out of nostalgia (citing Chinese have beaten better equipped foes before), others due to lack of knowledge (today's generation of PLA are far better educated than before) or the economical realities at that time.

But all in all, to equip with primary light infantry (and with inferior technology) is only due to reality rather than of choice: to make up for the disparity of technology you'd need a very large size force, and that'd gobble up a very large portion of able-bodied men and women, who'd be needed for other activities in the economy, in short that country would have next to no hope for principle improvement, unless they've vast resources that could fetch good prices in the world market...but if that's so they'd naturally gear up to a modernized army...

The initial scenario is far too broad for anyone to be able to formulate any sort of conclusion.

To have any chance to come up with a rational strategy and conclusion, you need a very detailed scenario that include things such as relative force size, overall mission objectives for both sides, degree of committment to the war, where the combined force army's home country is in relation to the all-infantry force, kind of terrain they would be fighting over, the attitude of the local population etc...

There are just far too many factors to consider that we could spend months and many many pages just hammering out the pre-requisits.

I think it would be a lot easier to use real world countries and forces as approximate proxies, or a basic model, onto which we could add or change things to best suit the circumstances you had in mind.

So, for example, you could suggest that the entire PLA special forces arm tries to defeat the British Army in Germany or something like that and it would give us something to work with.

vesicles said:

Excellent point. Now I think about, the light infantry may no longer have the kind of advantages normally associated with light infantry when facing a technologically advanced opponent. For instance, speed. Normally speaking, light infantry would depend on fast maneuvers and surprise attacks. Now, would a light infantry on foot move faster than a completely mechanized force? How fast and how long do you have to run to out-maneuver IFVs and tanks going 30 mph? How long can you last with the IFVs and tanks going non-stop forever (theoretically speaking)? Even if the light infantry manages to trap their opponent, can they actually contain them? Without heavy equipment to build roadblocks, how can they stop the IFVs and tanks from bursting out of the entrapment?

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Well, that is also a good point, which is why all the environmental factors would be so important. If the battlefield was vietnam, light infantry could still enjoy the advantage of being more mobile, and if this was somewhere with lots of hills or east choke points like North Korea or Serbia, use of IEDs could also help to neutralize the superior road speed of modern vehicles. But such strategies would simply not work in a desert environment like Libya.

But in the most general terms, the only way to win a war through purely military means is to destroy the enemy's fighting strength before he does the same to yours. You can do this either through inflicting a few large scale casaulties or many many small scale casaulties to bleed and enemy to the point where you can overwhelm what is left.

The most basic pre-requisit to even have a chance is that the infantry only force has access to ATGMs and MANPADs that are capable to taking out the very best armor and helos available to the combined force. Because there will be next to no way you can achieve a true military victory if the enemy has things you just cannot hurt.

In addition, both sides need to have access to at the very least local area secure wireless communications capabilities, as there is no way you can win a war if your line of comminication is limited to shouting distance.

Modern weapons and communications has advanced to such a stage that any large scale assaults by the infantry only force will only lead to their own swift destruction. So the only viable option would be to launch small scale attacks swifty and fade away before the enemy can bring their superior firepower to bare.

It would also be useful to know if the combined force has access to air bases outside of the country, as all existing air bases would become a high priority target if not. In addition, the size of the air force is also important, because some tactics will work with a small air force while not against a large one.

If the combined force only has a small, but highly advanced air force, setting up suicide squads to camp the enemy air bases with MANPADs and anti-material sniper rifles may deal a heavy blow. Also, you could string out a small enemy air force by launching a large number of small to medium sized attacks at the same time to get the enemy to commit most of their air cover before launching a massive assault against a key target to minimise any damage enemy air power could inflict.

If you had the time, digging tunnels to bypass the perimetre of key installations like air bases and artillary parks could also be used. So when your massive assault starts, the enemy artillary and air crews would be too busy dogding bullets to respond to fire support requests.

That would require a nation-wide secure communications network for the infantry only force to have any chance of pulling off, and will also depend on the combined force only having a small number of artillery and air bases.

This is obviously a very abstract scenario that will have no historical parallels, because there is no way any nation is going to be able to field an ultra elite infrantry force like the entire PLA special forces branch, equip them to the same standard and not have the rest of the combined force to go with them.

But, for the sake of argument, if you took the entire North Korean standing army minus their heavy equipment and topped them off with all the special forces the PLA has, and set them off against a medium sized but well equipped force like the British, French or even Israelis, provided the infantry force can keep their members hidden when they want to, and if they were fighting somewhere small, like Israel or Britain, but the navies play no part, then the infantry force might just have a shot, if they don't care about territory. If the combined force can force the infantry force into a stand up fight in anything other than ideal condictions for the infantry force, its GG and lets dig the mass graves.

plawolf said:

I think it would be a lot easier to use real world countries and forces as approximate proxies, or a basic model, onto which we could add or change things to best suit the circumstances you had in mind.

So, for example, you could suggest that the entire PLA special forces arm tries to defeat the British Army in Germany or something like that and it would give us something to work with.

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Good point.

Here's a scenario:

Following the Great Economic Crash of 2012 in UK, the Scotland independence movement rises to a height unmatched since the times of William Wallace. The turns into a large paramilitary force and in 2018 decide to declare independence. The English respond by dispatching a force of 5000 to put down this new rebellion. The English have access to all the equipment of the UK military, while the SNLA only have access to military equipment stolen from military bases in Scotland and equipment smuggled across the North Sea by, say, Denmark. Let's say the English are led by competent generals, but the SNLA is led by a second William Wallace, with comparable leadership and strategic capabilities. Let's say the SNLA numbers ~20,000. Assume the Scottish civilian population is sympathetic toward the paramilitary, but unwilling to openly revolt yet.

Would the SNLA be able to beat back the English, or would Wallace the 2nd suffer the fate of his predecessor?

All these scenarios need a political context. Take the Korean war. The fact that South Korea was ruled by the horrible dictator Syngman Rhee will have had a lot to do with the attitude of the Korean population and the support for the forces fighting his regime. I like Solarz sketch of an independence war for Scotland but expect and trust that Scotland will, or will not, become independent without such horrors.

solarz said:

The US retreat ended at Osan, far south of the 38th parallel. By the end of 1950, the US army was demoralized and the UN made several ceasefire proposals to the Chinese. Had China accepted the ceasefire, I believe the Korean War would have ended right there and then.

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Do we know whether the ceasefire was truly what the UN wanted or they simply were looking to get a breather so that they could regroup? There is no way we can guess what would happen if China stopped at the 38th. The war could stop there, or the UN took some time to regroup and come back with a vengeance. We don't know that. All we know is the war dragged on for 3 years and MacArthur wanted to use nuke.

solarz said:

I think that is a rather subjective assessment. The US forces suffered heavy casualties during their retreat.

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Well, 50,000 for the UN vs. >1000,000 for the PVA. You tell me who suffered heavy casualty. If it weren't because China is a big nation and had a large population, PVA would've had no one to fight with in the end.

solarz said:

I don't deny that the Chinese suffered many setbacks due to their lack of equipment and technology, but then the idea here is whether a light infantry army *can* overcome a better equipped army despite these disadvantages.

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What exactly happened in Korea shows that the answer to your question is a big NO. No one can sustain the mobile style of fighting for long. that's why China and the UN fought a stationary war toward the end. A big reason for that would be the difficulty of maintaining supply and stamina during a fast mobile war. No one can do it for long. Romel mainly used fast mobile style and he ran out of supply in both France and North Africa. That was with the Germany having the overwhelming technological advantage over its enemies. Imagine what would happen to a light infantry that's inferior to its enemy.

solarz said:

The strength of light infantry isn't speed but mobility. I.E. the ability to go places where tanks and trucks can't. They are also much better at infiltrating behind enemy lines, which was in fact a staple tactic of the PVA during the Korean War.

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Again, supply, supply, supply! How do you maintain supply when your troops are moving all over places? Someone mentioned in a previous post that the light infantry can hide in places like mountains and forests. These are precisely the places that make supply a nightmare. How do you support your million troops with no supply?

This type of guerrilla warfare is not a style of choice, but is out of necessity. It is extremely difficult to use. If China had a choice, they would not do it. The CCP didn't use it at the beginning when they thought they had a chance of winning in the 1930's. They went to that style of fighting when they had absolutely nothing else in the '30s and '40s. When they obtained enough weapons toward the end of the Chinese civil war, they immediately abandoned the guerrilla style of fighting. The same happened in the Korean War. They had no choice, but to use it at the beginning and immediately abandoned toward the end of the war. As you can see, even the expert of light infantry and guerrilla fighting style abandons this kind of fighting style when given another option.

What happened in early '51 was only one episode of the war. You cannot use it as evidence of the advantage of the style. Again, people use it because they get no other options. It's only a style that prolongs the war a little. With more time, they might be able to find another opportunity to turn things around. It's NOT an answer, but simply a way to get more time to seek a proper answer.

solarz said:

As for stopping the tanks and IFVs from bursting out of entrapment, I think RPGs would work better than roadblocks.

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How many RPG's can you carry when you have to constantly move around? Those grenades/missiles are pretty heavy, yes? How many of them do you need to take out an armored column? Your advanced opponent can simply call for air support and attack choppers can follow the armored column and knock out those RPG positions with ease.

solarz said:

That this bitter lesson was incorporated by the PLA is evident in the way they conducted the 1962 Sino-Indian war and the 1979 Sino-Vietnam war: having achieved their objectives, the PLA announced a ceasefire and withdrew.

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What happened in Korea was a lot different from what happened in India and Vietnam. In Korea, China was on the defending side. Unilateral ceasefire while you are defending an invading force is unrealistic. In India and Vietnam, however, China was the attacker. With the initiative fully on the China's side, China was much more flexible.