In his latest column George Will quotes Gen. Wesley Clark as saying the Taliban was “the most incompetent adversary the United States has fought since the Barbary pirates.”
This got me to thinking. If the Taliban and the Barbary Pirates were the worst, who was the BEST? Obviously, “best” is a relative term. I am defining it here as Quality versus all others in the world in its branch (Army/Navy/Air Force) and quality versus the forces the U.S. had to use against it. Three different units immediately come to mind:
1- The Imperial Japanese Navy in WWII. This war remains the only time two countries with aircraft carriers fought each other. The U.S. won at first through better intelligence, but later with sheer numbers and better aircraft.
2- The German Army in WWI and WWII. In both cases, the U.S. and its allies were inferior in quality of heavy weaponry, operational doctrine, and training of front-line troops. I don’t think it’s belittling the quality of the U.S. fighting man of the time to say they won mostly through superior numbers, better logistics, better intelligence (the ULTRA intercepts) and vastly superior air support.
3- The British Army of the Revolutionary War/War of 1812 period. I am lumping the periods together because there was no real difference between the weapons or tactics used by either side in either conflict.
I am going with #3. The British Army in this period was the equal to any in the world before the rise of Napoleon. The Japanese Navy and German Army were both decisively defeated by U.S. forces in the end. But despite a few major victories, even decisive ones, U.S. forces never consistently outfought the British Army on a regular basis. And they lost as much as they won.
I am not counting any Air Forces, because I could not think of any Air Force since the invention of the airplane that has mounted a serious challenge. I also did not count the British Navy of the Revolutionary War period, since no U.S. Navy as such existed, either then or for decades afterward. This makes comparisons moot.
I don’t really know, but I would guess the Revolutionary War Brits and the Nazi Germans, by the standards of their respective times, of course. I would also guess that certain groups of Native Americans would rank pretty high on the Guerrilla Warfare Scale.
Not so WWI, as much. The Germans weren’t much better than the Brits or us, in fact their tanks sucked.
The British Navy in the War of 1812 was agreed upon to to be the best in the world, yet we could usually beat them on a limited ship-to-ship basis.
Our ships were better than the IJN. Their planes were better at first, and their pilots. We got better far faster than they did. In fact, I just read a book “the Worlds Worst Warships”, and in there are quite a few IJN ships, and even the Yamato.
On a “man to man” basis, several American Indian tribes outfought the US Army, but often in Guerilla warfare. In a straight battle, the Army woudl usually win. However, they were the early masters of guerrilla warfare.
The Apache were eventually defeated. Can’t say that about the Seminole.
There was an obstacle course in the jungle in French Guiana used to train Foreign Legionaires. The best legionarie time was 90 minutes. The worst record for the course was 8 hours by a group of visiting US Marines.
To expand on Bosda’s point:
I have seen military history books that state that the American Civil War was the most “advanced” or “modern” war in the history of the world. We were better at killing each other than any foreign enemy, before or since.
Trouble with choosing the Brits is that the best troops and best commander (Wellington) were elsewhere (Portugal and Spain) dealing with that funny Frenchie chappie.
The army in North America was, afaik, pretty second rate by 1812.
Has the US ever faced a Wellington - I seriously doubt it.
Every bit of WW2 literature I have read or documentary I have seen suggested that German tanks were far superior to any other countrie’s and were in a league of their own. Their only problem [for the germans] was that there were not enough of them [by a long way]
And AFAIAA the German soldiers had far far longer to train and prepare for war. The US and british soldiers only had the time since it became apparant that there might be a war soon.
German tanks, especially the Panther and Tiger series ones, where vasty superior to the American Sherman in actual combat, but the Russian T-34s could hold their own against them. Aside from the lack of numbers, the German tanks also suffered from serious reliabity problems as well, with as many as half of the tanks unuasable at any given time.
Well, we killed 10 North Vietnamese and Vietcong soldiers for every man we lost, but, to make a long story short, we got tired of fighting and just decided to go home- we weren’t beaten on the battlefield.
I’m not convinced at all by this statement. Contrarily to its fleet, the british army of this time (and even later…Bismarck is quoted as having said “If the british army land, I’ll send the police to arrest them”) seldom fought and didn’t have a very good overall reputation (the XVIII° century army with the best reputation was by far the Prussian army).
I’m going to vote for the Royal Navy in the War of 1812. Granted, the US Navy never went up against any RN battle fleets, and would have been annihilated if they had,* but they did very well in one on one frigate engagements, far better than anyone else had done against the RN for a couple centuries.
In second place, I’d put the Wehrmacht under Rommel in France, though the Wehrmacht had already been bled white on the Eastern Front by '44.
And in third place, I’d put the Sioux under Sitting Bull.
*For the simple reason that the US didn’t have any sail of the line, and frigates, even largish 44’s like the Constitution and her sister ships, do not, I repeat, do not try to duke it out against battleships, even smallish ones like the ubiquitous 3rd Rate 74’s.
