# The creation of "super soldiers": Obviously we can, but should we? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 14, 2003, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448 "2003-01-14T02:48:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![JustPlainBryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@JustPlainBryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustPlainBryan)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/61 "2003-01-16T20:35:11Z")
Excellent. Now all we need to do is develop mecha (giant robotic machines with human pilots) and we will be living my anime dream future. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/62 "2003-01-16T21:22:25Z")
Let me just say i won’t be selling any stock in Standard Military [ticker: TNK] anytime soon. Anywhoo, I suppose it is possible we’ll see these on a battlefield, but not until the technology is much more advanced, much smaller, and it will not look like mecha. ---
**Author:** ![JustPlainBryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@JustPlainBryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustPlainBryan)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/63 "2003-01-16T21:31:17Z")
> [@](#): > > and it will not look like mecha _sigh_ One can always dream. ---
**Author:** ![DreadCthulhu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DreadCthulhu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DreadCthulhu)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/64 "2003-01-16T21:45:32Z")
It might look like the hardsuits from Bubblegum Crisis though. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/65 "2003-01-16T22:22:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Yet again another willful misinterpretation of my posts. And I love it when someone puts words in my mouth. I did not dismiss the above link, I merely stated that it is not a valid source of killratio. The story there is actually rather interesting. I put no words in your mouth. If you mean to say something, say it. We are not mind readers and you have been vague, at best. Morevoer, you did not adequately explain why you dismiss their numbers. Except to accuse US servicemen of butchering whole villages, and you implied this was common practice, simply to add to their kill ratios. You are not going to get off of that statement lightly. Not here. ---
**Author:** ![ElJeffe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/958977/32.png) [@ElJeffe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElJeffe)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/66 "2003-01-16T23:27:31Z")
Yes, I would definitely prefer the exoskeleton approach to making better soldiers. About a year ago, I saw a story about some military research into making exoskeletons that would, among other things: protect the wearer from chemical and biological weapons, as well as raditation effects; provide climate control, to warm soldiers in the cold and cool them in the heat; make them faster and stronger; increase their carrying capacity; provide up-to-date mission-critical information; include a HUD that provided lots of nifty information (think Metroid Prime); include a cloaking device that blends the soldier into his surroundings (think low-tech Predator); and lots of other cool stuff. Unfortunately, I can’t find the link to the design proposal anymore, but I’ll keep looking. Anyway, if we can get something like this to work, to hell with genetic engineering. Take the exo-suit idea and run with it. Go the next step: full scale anime-style mech warriors. Come on, how cool would that be? Would anybody mess with our army when we strolled in there in a small squad of 50-ton mechs, picked up their tanks, and hucked them 2 miles? All the while, obnoxious American rock music blaring out of the mechs’ speakers! We’d be invincible! Jeff ---
**Author:** ![JustPlainBryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@JustPlainBryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustPlainBryan)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2003, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/67 "2003-01-16T23:46:28Z")
> [@](#): > > Go the next step: full scale anime-style mech warriors. Come on, how cool would that be? Would anybody mess with our army when we strolled in there in a small squad of 50-ton mechs, picked up their tanks, and hucked them 2 miles? All the while, obnoxious American rock music blaring out of the mechs’ speakers! We’d be invincible! A person after my own heart! Bring on the mecha! ---
**Author:** ![DreadCthulhu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DreadCthulhu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DreadCthulhu)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/68 "2003-01-17T03:10:50Z")
The problem with mecha is that their profile is way too high, making them easy targets for tanks, aircraft RPG’s, artillery, and other weapons. And a 50 ton mecha would have so much pressure on its feet that it would sink into almost any surface short of reinforced concrete. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/69 "2003-01-17T03:14:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DreadCthulhu \* > \*\*The problem with mecha is that their profile is way too high, making them easy targets for tanks, aircraft RPG’s, artillery, and other weapons. And a 50 ton mecha would have so much pressure on its feet that it would sink into almost any surface short of reinforced concrete. \*\* What about genetically modified mecha? Or would that be immoral? Don’t laugh, it could happen. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/70 "2003-01-17T03:43:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by smiling bandit \* > \*\* > I didn’t say they were stupid. But they were vastly undertrained and equpped compared to the Germans. \*\* They were undertrained certainly in most parts of the early war, and sometimes even in the late war. What makes you think you were underequipped? > [@](#): > > \*\* > > Later one, yes, they got better - but never cam close to equalling the German military expertise. \*\* They grew into a far more capable and competant army, while the German army was being destroyed and replaced with conscripts. As the war went on, the favor went to the Russians, both in terms of average troop quality, operational planning, and equipment. As much as we have a romantic notion of the Wermacht being some invincible group of ubermensch overwhelmed by ridiculous numbers (one wonders where those ridiculous numbers came from, given that, IIRC, Russia had less than twice the population, and lost a huge number of men of fighting age in the first 6 months of the operation to encirclements), it didn’t happen that way from the mid-war on. The Russians learned to fight, and they learned to outfight the Germans, not just overwhelm them. > [@](#): > > \*\* > In any event, the Russians won their side of the war in the early days of the conflict, when they stopped the German drive. And they turned it back with a small, skiled core and a huge mass of untrained peasant-soldiers. \*\* That’s true, the crucial points in the battle were largely settled with primarily minimally trained peasants, but even though the outcome of the war was fairly clear by mid 1942, there were still 3 years of hard fighting to be done. The Russians didn’t have the men to simply throw at the Germans and beat them back for 3 years. They had to learn to fight, and fight well. And they did. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Believe me, it is sad so say, but in fact most Eastern-Front battles were fought by very skilled German defenders (after they were turned from Moscow) who lost to huge swarms of Russians. It wasn’t a pretty tactic, but it was how that war was fought. Its no stain on the Russians that their government didn’t really care about them, well, compared to the Nazi threat, anyway. \*\* If the idea of masses of Russian peasants running at German machine guns, dying in droves, for 5 years of war is correct and typical, then it seems to me that Russia would have had to have several times the population of Germany to win. Even more, considering the Russians lost MILLIONS of fighting age men to capture during the opening months of the war. That isn’t the case. Later in the war, when the Russians were destroying entire armies, there were mass influxes of German conscripts - often ones who weren’t in the army because they were declared unfit for service - against many Russian soldiers who had seen months and years of battle. Popular western myth would have us believe that the German conscripts were ubermensch and better skilled simply because they were German. For about 50 years, all we had to work with was German documents basically saying “We were all ubermensch who could’ve won if Hitler didn’t interfere!”, combined with the lack of Soviet data, and the desire to label the Soviets as untrained hordes, and you get a colored perception of WW2 in which huge masses of untrained Russians swarmed the elite Germans who ripped apart tanks with their bare hands due to their superior nature, and only Hitler’s fuckups and the unending masses of men they had to throw for 5 years kept them from winning. That’s just not how it happened. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/71 "2003-01-17T03:55:17Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by hlujarn \* > \*\*Overreporting? It is called mass murder, war crimes. > > My link was to show you that casualty numbers were greatly exaggerated and that civilian casualties were considered “kills” Either you missed the point, or you didn’t bother to look. \*\* And you didn’t bother to respond to the rest of my post. Even if we disregard the kill ratio (and your assertion that they’re hugely off doesn’t ring true with me, but I’m willing to admit it might be somewhat exaggerated), we still won every single battle of the war. Every single battle. We were never overrun in platoon strength or more. Never. Once. In the entire war. > [@](#): > > \*\* > Here is a quote from the trials: > “GIs joked that “anything that’s dead and isn’t white is a VC” for body count purposes.” > > Link: [http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/Myl\_intro.html](http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/mylai/Myl_intro.html) > > So your link does not have any meaning in this matter, since it is shown that these numbers include murder of civilians. > > Your link: [http://www.rjsmith.com/kia\_tbl.html](http://www.rjsmith.com/kia_tbl.html) \*\* Yes, but neither of us can quantify to what degree. It’s not as if all civilian deaths are counted - there were 3 or 4 million of them - just ones that occured on a battlefield. Are you asserting that US forces regularly wiped out entire villages just to raise the kill count, or merely counted people who had incidentally died in the battle that might not have been VC? > [@](#): > > \*\* > > And furthermore I never said US soldiers were lousy, just that they were not the best in the world. \*\* Who are, out of curiosity? And I might agree with you in some ways, even. I think it’s impossible to quantify ‘best soldiers in the world’. In fighting a big, open, mass force, mobile war like the gulf war, we’re certainly at the top. Had we made a ground invasion of Kosovo back in 1999, we might’ve been less skilled, foot soldier for foot soldier, in that environment, than the Serbs. After all, most of them have lived a war torn life, have battle experience, were well equipped, and fighting in their own back yard. So ‘best soldiers’ is too vague. In general, I think the US has the best general purpose ground forces in the world, which is to say, if you put out 20 scenarios, they’d dominate the list. In any case, I took objection to you portraying the US forces in Vietnam as inept. They were not, as I made clear. It’s an insult to the men who fought there to be thought of badly because of the political mistakes of a bunch of fuckups in Washington, and I felt the need to make that clear. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/72 "2003-01-17T12:59:03Z")
> [@](#): > > They grew into a far more capable and competant army, while the German army was being destroyed and replaced with conscripts. As the war went on, the favor went to the Russians, both in terms of average troop quality, operational planning, and equipment. Yes and no. They got a lot of veteran soldiers - but they did the hard way, by killing off large portions of their populace. Yes, the germans captured a lot of Russia, but there was still plenty to work with, there were a _LOT_ of guerrillas, who eventually joined up with the Red Army, and the Red Army was continually regaining territory. > [@](#): > > As much as we have a romantic notion of the Wermacht being some invincible group of ubermensch overwhelmed by ridiculous numbers (one wonders where those ridiculous numbers came from, given that, IIRC, Russia had less than twice the population, and lost a huge number of men of fighting age in the first 6 months of the operation to encirclements), it didn’t happen that way from the mid-war on. The Russians learned to fight, and they learned to outfight the Germans, not just overwhelm them. I don’t subscribe to this notion. There were no battles, period, in which more Germans died than Russians [on the Eastern front]. Part of this is the defender’s advantage, but Germany kept a great deal of martial expertise. They were ground into the dirt. The Russians eventually did get more equipment, mostly because the Germans all was destroyed. Also, remember that even though Russia evened out the difference in gear somewhat with the Assault Rifle, they didn’t have as many machine guns nor as good weaponry. The German squad tactic, based around supportng the Machine Gunner, must have been positive hell on rollerskates. And as for the numbers: Russia was able and willing to put far more troops in _her_ Western Front against Germany than Germany could put against the Russians. It doesn’t matter if Germany had half or a third the number of Russians - since the Germans had to defend on three fronts at once, and could not do it. It wasn’t a matter of population, but force spreading. ---
**Author:** ![tracer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tracer/32/20578_2.png) [@tracer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tracer)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/73 "2003-01-17T13:38:47Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Lemur866 \* > **You’d have to raise the BABIES you created that way. What military is going to spend 18 years changing diapers, giving bottles and scheduling naptimes just so that they might possibly have a physically better soldier?** Why not? They did it with Ender Wiggin. 😉 > [@](#): > > **And how exactly is this going to pass the 13th Amendment? […] what if your super soldier prefers flower arranging, and decides to go to art college instead of Parris Island?** Then you draft him into the army. Some Federal court somewhere decided that being drafted into the military doesn’t count as “involuntary servitude.” Though God only knows why not. ---
**Author:** ![hlujarn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/7bcc69/32.png) [@hlujarn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hlujarn)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/74 "2003-01-17T22:20:21Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SenorBeef \* > > * * * > > Yes, but neither of us can quantify to what degree. It’s not as if all civilian deaths are counted - there were 3 or 4 million of them - just ones that occured on a battlefield. > > Are you asserting that US forces regularly wiped out entire villages just to raise the kill count, or merely counted people who had incidentally died in the battle that might not have been VC? > > And I might agree with you in some ways, even. I think it’s impossible to quantify ‘best soldiers in the world’. In fighting a big, open, mass force, mobile war like the gulf war, we’re certainly at the top. > > Had we made a ground invasion of Kosovo back in 1999, we might’ve been less skilled, foot soldier for foot soldier, in that environment, than the Serbs. After all, most of them have lived a war torn life, have battle experience, were well equipped, and fighting in their own back yard. > > So ‘best soldiers’ is too vague. In general, I think the US has the best general purpose ground forces in the world, which is to say, if you put out 20 scenarios, they’d dominate the list. > > In any case, I took objection to you portraying the US forces in Vietnam as inept. They were not, as I made clear. It’s an insult to the men who fought there to be thought of badly because of the political mistakes of a bunch of fuckups in Washington, and I felt the need to make that clear. \*\* First of all I’m not asserting anything, I was merely stating a fact that it happened. This is the most famous court marshal concerning this, and surely this was not an isolated incident. According to the document platoon leader William Calley was obviously mad, and quite possibly the Company’s commanding officer Ernest Medina. They did wipe out an entire village and reported it as VC kills. Later it was verified that no VC was present. But I’ll bet that after the massacre every survivor of the village turned VC as well as neighboring villages. Off course not every one was like that. Who do you think filed charges of war crimes? - Chief Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson. ## An account: ## Chief Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson arrived in the My Lai vicinity about 9 a.m. Thompson noticed dead and dying civilians all over the village. Thompson repeatedly saw young boys and girls being shot at point-blank range. Thompson, furious at what he saw, reported the wanton killings to brigade headquarters. Meanwhile, the rampage below continued. Calley was at the drainage ditch on the eastern edge of the village, where about seventy to eighty old men, women, and children not killed on the spot had been brought. Calley ordered the dozen or so platoon members there to push the people into the ditch, and three or four GIs did. Calley ordered his men to shoot into the ditch. Some refused, others obeyed. One who followed Calley’s order was Paul Meadlo, who estimated that he killed about twenty-five civilians. (Later Meadlo was seen, head in hands, crying.) Calley joined in the massacre. At one point, a two-year-old child who somehow survived the gunfire began running towards the hamlet. Calley grabbed the child, threw him back in the ditch, then shot him. Hugh Thompson, by now almost frantic, saw bodies in the ditch, including a few people who were still alive. He landed his helicopter and told Calley to hold his men there while he evacuated the civilians. Thompson told his helicopter crew chief to “open up on the Americans” if they fired at the civilians. He put himself between Calley’s men and the Vietnamese. When a rescue helicopter landed, Thompson had the nine civilians, including five children, flown to the nearest army hospital. Later, Thompson was to land again and rescue a baby still clinging to her dead mother. Some people did not let the war drive them insane, so clearly not everyone deliberately killed civilians. It did happen and one wonders how many incidents went unreported. As to the rest of your post, I agree with you. It’s impossible to quantify ‘best soldiers in the world’. Maybe it was wrong of me to put the Viet Nam war as an example. It’s your view that US soldiers are the best, not mine. If I were to put my money on “the best soldiers” I would say the British army. This has gone way off topic. Every one wants MECHAS. I think that’s settled then. Regards, hlujarn ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/75 "2003-01-17T22:49:30Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by hlujarn \* > \*\*First of all I’m not asserting anything, I was merely stating a fact… What do you think the word “assert” means? You get 100 unconscious irony points. Your harping on the My Lai Massacre doesn’t do anything for your position, whatever that is. You’re using a single incident to try to prove something about the American military, but what connection that has to “super soldeirs” escapes me. ---
**Author:** ![hlujarn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/7bcc69/32.png) [@hlujarn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hlujarn)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/76 "2003-01-17T22:59:53Z")
You are right Bryan, It doesn’t have anything to do with super soldiers. It all began with the Kill-ratio thing. Look guys, I didn’t intend to insult anyone. Lets just go for the mecha. ---
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/77 "2003-01-17T23:05:56Z")
> [@](#): > > and surely this was not an isolated incident Cite? > [@](#): > > I didn’t intend to insult anyone. You did anyway. ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/78 "2003-01-17T23:27:48Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by hlujarn \* > **…** You still haven’t addressed the point that our lowly conscripts never lost a single battle during the entire war, nor were ever overrun in platoon strength or greater. ---
**Author:** ![JustPlainBryan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/57b2e6/32.png) [@JustPlainBryan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JustPlainBryan)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 11:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/79 "2003-01-17T23:40:10Z")
> [@](#): > > Lets just go for the mecha. Yay for Mecha! ---
**Author:** ![SenorBeef](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senorbeef/32/2220_2.png) [@SenorBeef](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SenorBeef)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2003, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448/80 "2003-01-17T23:46:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by smiling bandit \* > \*\*Yes and no. They got a lot of veteran soldiers - but they did the hard way, by killing off large portions of their populace. Yes, the germans captured a lot of Russia, but there was still plenty to work with, there were a _LOT_ of guerrillas, who eventually joined up with the Red Army, and the Red Army was continually regaining territory. \*\* Not only did they capture a lot of Russia, they captured almost the entire pre-war Russian army in the first 6 months of battle, mostly when they were in the middle of mobilizing. Russia simply didn’t have a gazillion men to throw at the problem after that. They had lots, and more than Germany could throw in the theater, but definitely not enough to just throw away troops battle after battle for 5 years of war. > [@](#): > > \*\* > > I don’t subscribe to this notion. There were no battles, period, in which more Germans died than Russians [on the Eastern front]. Part of this is the defender’s advantage, but Germany kept a great deal of martial expertise. \*\* Well, it’s not fair to count casualties by set piece battles. The defender naturally will rack up more kills. What you can evaluate is how that battle plays in the rest of the operation, and evaluate losses on that basis. Operation Bagration comes to mind, where the Red Army flat out destroyed something like 30 or 40 divisions, without horrific losses. Sure, on the individual battles, the Russian troops probably had more casualties - but if you want to go to that standard (casualties strictly from one battle), then there were probably many incidents in the early war where Russian defenders killed more Germans in the battle - the Germans just concluded operational movements that captured hundreds of thousands or millions of men that made it worth it. > [@](#): > > \*\* > > They were ground into the dirt. The Russians eventually did get more equipment, mostly because the Germans all was destroyed. \*\* They were ground into the dirt, and I’m not saying the Germans weren’t skilled. Germany was skilled - it’s just that by mid to late war, so were the Russians. Both in tactical and operational arts. And the Russians, depending on what you mean by equipment, typically had more during the entire war - they outproduced Germany in medium tanks by about 3 or 4 to 1, for example. > [@](#): > > \*\* > > Also, remember that even though Russia evened out the difference in gear somewhat with the Assault Rifle, they didn’t have as many machine guns nor as good weaponry. \*\* Actually, you’re probably thinking of the StG 44 or MP44 assault rifle the Germans deployed. The Russians didn’t deploy an assault rifle during the war - not until the ak-47 in 1949. And I’d have to check the numbers, but I’d guess Russians had equal numbers or better of machine guns. > [@](#): > > \*\* > The German squad tactic, based around supportng the Machine Gunner, must have been positive hell on rollerskates. \*\* It failed them in many situations, such as the storming of Stalingrad. > [@](#): > > \*\* > > And as for the numbers: Russia was able and willing to put far more troops in _her_ Western Front against Germany than Germany could put against the Russians. It doesn’t matter if Germany had half or a third the number of Russians - since the Germans had to defend on three fronts at once, and could not do it. It wasn’t a matter of population, but force spreading. \*\* That’s a good point. I was just trying to demonstrate that the common idea that Russians died in droves to the Germans, like at a 20:1 kill ratio, just falls apart flat on it’s face because the Russians would need ungodly amount of men to throw at the Germans for 5 years if that were the case. In most tactical battles, the defender racked up more kills - that’s just the nature of warfare - but operationally, the Russians later became quite skilled. They began destroying entire German armies in operations - just as the Germans had done early in the war. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-creation-of-super-soldiers-obviously-we-can-but-should-we/148448.md?page=5)