In warfare, quality or quantity?

Veto R

You want both. But, if you have to choose it would be quality knowing that quantity will eventually overwhelm quality. As proven in the Chinese intervention in the Korean War, you can only kill so many before being overrun.

yooper4278

Definately quality. In the German invasion of Russia in the summer of '41, the german army routinely pushed back forces 10x greater in number than their own, due to their high level of training, motivation and leadership in comparison to that of Russia's conscripts. I read an interesting tidbit in a book about the Russian attack on Finland in November of 1939 (The winter war)when the valiant Finns held off a much greater force of Russians for 4 months. The Finns captured a Russian soldier, and found a brand new pair of women's shoes in his backpack. When they asked him about it, he said he was out shopping for his wife's birthday back in Russia when he was grabbed off the street and conscripted into the army on the spot. They didn't even allow him to go home and tell his family first, hence the shoes he still had in his backpack for his wife. I doubt he was very highly motivated as a result of this.

KERMIT M

The 100 Marines of either stripe will take down the 1000 Chinese Conscripts --- given the right battle plan.

Roarke's Drift is a great example of 100's stopping 1000's when these same 1000's overwhelmed their entire regiment only hours before.

The Alamo -- less than 200 held off 5000 until the Mexican troops managed to get to the wall, out of the line of fire and make a nice hole in the wall.

Ia Drang - a few hundred US Air Cav hold off an entire NVA regiment.

But to your point, every tactical situation is different and those 1000 Chinese Conscripts will prevail 4 out of 10 times.

Mjoshua

Just watch the movies Rambo. You will figure out the answer then.

keith d

To quote Stalin "quantity has a quality all its own".
Given sufficient numbers you can beat anyone.

Beastie

Quality; and you never want to be on the same team as conscripts.

A hundred Bootnecks have most people thinking of being somewhere else, a thousand conscripts or not.

A conscript lacks one fundamental thing that a volunteer has got. Motivation.
A conscript, generally, is only motivated by the need to do his military time and get back to the real world.
A volunteer joins for a variety of reasons. Bootnecks tend to join because you get to travel, meet interesting people, and kill them. Amongst other reasons, of course.
Bootnecks have the longest training course of any non Special Forces unit in the world, and it's a course which you can fail right up to the final seconds before you pass out.
Conscripts are trained to the minimum standard which allows them to perform day to day duties.

Hundred Royal Marines versus a thousand of ANY group of conscripts, my money's on the Green.

USMC, once they worked out who the enemy were and stopped whittling down their own team, would win too. They're trained to about the same standard as the average British squaddie. The fact that they think they're the elite doesn't mean squat.

This, of course, depends on the lie of the land. An open battle in an area with decent cover being a prerequisite. Anyone with a big enough army can win a battle with guns on a flat field. You just need to kill the other lot faster than they kill you.

It is nonsense to say that quantity will always win, though. You only have to look at battles throughout the history of the world to find instances where the smaller, better trained army overcame a much, much larger force by employing better tactics as well as better training.

Andy

quality

jane m

I would go for quality every time no matter what the scenario

Keiran S

for me it's definitely quality
the rhodesian SAS were one of the most highly trained special forces in the world in the 70s/80s, and were mainly so good due to their speed and aggression in operations. small amounts of them were able to devastate the guerrillas in these times

same with our SAS, things like the embassy siege etc.

however i just watched black hawk down, and i suppose the yanks did get caned by all those locals lol

Slowblinker

10 to 1 odds are not good for the US/Royal Marines.

I see too many people on here underestimating the enemy. Not smart as a bullet from their gun kills just as easily as the other way around.

You are right though that the situation would dictate some of how the outcome would be.

Much also depends on the weapons used. For instance, Chinese mortars vs US pistols or light machine guns, rifle to rifle etc.

Small unit tactics I would give the nod to the Marines.

Mr Rosenkrantz

Obviously it is completely dependent on the situation. You can find an argument for either.
In truth, and if you read your history, neither is as important as the reason you are fighting in the first place - that ultimately dictates whether you succeed or not regardless of the above (just look at Vietnam).

AlexOath

quality think about past wars. =)

Call Me Bwana

In the hi-tech world of weaponry, quantity without quality simply means the hi-tech warriors encounter "target-rich" environments.

The modern weapons of modern armies are so lethal, multiply force so well, that the numerical advantages that led to the Zulu victories over British troops, Russian victories in WW2 and Chinese advances in the Korean war are no longer possible.

The amount of firepower that can be called in, and the lethality of those weapons that can be delivered on target, more than make up for numerical inferiority.

The wars in Iraq have shown that there exist significant gaps in technology that can be employed by Western powers and Russia, versus what less advanced nations can employ. The arms that Saddam bought from China, Russia and France were no match for the US military.

George L

remember 300, quality troops held off what 300,000 Persians, well until they were killed.

DesB3rd

I suspect many people here have confused quality with easy access to well integrated, high quality force multipliers. In your example it would be this - the control of the skys, accurate & fast responding RT etc. - that would be the really obvious difference. The percieved qualitative edge of individual western units observable in recent wars has been mostly based on this.

Where such factors are equal and forces of differing quality engage on an equal firepower basis the results are as in the below example:

- 200 soldiers firing @ 50rpm hiting 0.5% of the time
- 1000 conscripts firing @ 20rpm hiting 0.25% of the time

- The force of 200 in eliminated in <5 minutes (assuming they don't break contact) while inflicting 130 casualties on the enemy.
- In this scenario the the force of 200 need their weight & accuracy of fire to give a "fire-effect" advantage of x5 (ie each soldier is firing with x25(!!) the effect of the conscript - a big ask) in order to achieve parity.

So to offset numbers greater by a given factor requires the quality to greater by a far greater factor.

Of course there is far more to being a good soldier that producing fire-effect. However this plays equally to conscipts who are just as good for driving trucks, digging trenches and maintaining a base presence in occupied territories. i.e stuff that soldiers spend 95% of their deployed time doing....

cookie monster FKA Willz

its the age old question,
rorks drift - 124 welsh and englishmen vs 4000 Zulus
it was won by the welsh and english as they were organised

Gerry Atrix

American numbers did not win in Vietnam

cinaedmacalpin

Quality first, but I wouldnt like to test China

sappercommando25

Now that depends on the situation and the theatre of warfare. In the past, quantity has always prevailed in the end.

Daniel S

Quality definitly
but then think of the morale if they see over a thousand conscripts comin thats unhealthy
besides "when in doubt frag it out"

Legz Akimbo

Thinking mainly of Balaclava (or charge of the light brigade if I've spelt balaclava horribly wrong), and the real Thin Red Line, I would have to say quality.

Unless its like, 1 vs 1000, but that's just getting ridiculous...

DomC

Quality, up to a certain extent, and factoring in weapons.

John M

I think you answered your own question with this one, and I think our US military is learning that you can't fight in the Middle East now the way we did in Europe and the South Seas in WW II.

Ember

QUALITY. If you strategically place well trained men, then you can hold off a heck of a big army that is twice your size.

Chief Rain In the Face

Its definetly quality...
example:
Iraq lost the gulf war to the US because their tanks couldnt shoot while moving... unlike the United States Chieftan tanks.

Robin

odds of 1000 to one is obvious
odds of 100 to 1 is pretty obvious
odds of 10 to 1 is by no means certain;

who is attacker, what terrain, weather, and light, what weapons, what motivation

if attacking a well defended position, attacker out numbering defender x 3 is considered even

matt88coles

Well yeah... you're right, it does depend on the situation. Is it a sneak attack or just straight up battle? All I can say is not too long ago a highly trained SEAL TEAM (navy seals) hijacked and took control of an enemy tanker ship without firing one bullet. They used only their stealth, skills and knives.

Acka

A few commandos can do a lot of damage, but in the end numbers will win.

(unless the technology is very unevenly balanced)

Slow Hand

I'd have to say 1000 Chinese Conscripts.
My reason?
Because not only are they pissed off for having to by in the military, they are at an age when they do go in, that they are very impressionable and would surely die for their cause. Not to mention the beatdown that they probably get if they don't perform at 100 percent, 24 hours a day.

I'm not at all knocking the RM or the USMC at all. I served wih both in Afghanistan and they are very loyal and professional.

Susan T

I'd say you are 100% correct. I think no solution fits for every problem all the time. Hiroshima and Nagasaki were effective at doing what they did, at the time. I don't think you want to use that method when clearing a building, no?

However, throughout history the army that has more to fight for regardless of number usually has an advantage. In a true war of attrition, in theory anyway, if an army is out manned and outgunned enough they will eventually lose.

CND

I have to say quantity if we are talking about the soldiers since the conscripts would be given army training and that can make anyone dangerous.

Bring technology into it however, and the Marines would absolutely cane the conscripts as the West has superior armaments, recon, vehicles etc

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