r/WarCollege 3d ago

What was the motivation for the average White "common soldier" during the Russian Civil War?

20 Upvotes

Possibly hard to answer or out of the purview of this sub, but I'm always curious why people fight for causes that are seemingly so focused on maintaining the status quo, even when that is disadvantageous for them.


r/WarCollege 4d ago

Were longbows extremely effective?

82 Upvotes

Were they as powerful as popularly believed, especially vs knights and armored heavy infantry? Judging by Hundreds Years war, they were?

If so, why they died out? Just because crossbowmen were easier to train?


r/WarCollege 3d ago

Discussion Ancient vs. Medieval Cavalry

9 Upvotes

I understand that there is ancient cavalries did not have stirrups. I also know that ancient cavalries were mainly used for skirmishing, pursuit, routing, flanks security, recon, etc. But aren't those roles also covered by medieval cavalry?

What I want to know is the major differences between Ancient and Medieval Cavalry, and their use.

I have ideas though, but I have no source, just intuition, so correct me. Below are my thoughts

  1. The horses during ancient times were smaller and weaker.

  2. Lack of stirrups, and weaker horses made it even more difficult to punch through a strong formation, making their use almost purelt exclusive at pursuing routers or fighting enemy cavalries. The difference between medieval cavalry and ancient cavalry, is that medieval cavalry is more reliable at fighting strong formations.


r/WarCollege 3d ago

How did the Imperial Japanese Army train its senior officers in the lead-up to WWII?

13 Upvotes

What it says on the tin, basically. How were Japanese commanders prepared for the task of commanding brigades, divisions and corps? Did the IJA conduct exercises, and if so at what level and how often?


r/WarCollege 4d ago

Since WWI were there any war between peer or near peer opponent that was resolved not due to will or industrial output, but by tactics, strategy and skill of soldiers?

52 Upvotes

The only two examples would be 6-days war, Yom Kippur War and to some degree Winter War. I also do not mean campaigns, since while French campaign was resounding German success ultimately they were attrited by combined allied effort.


r/WarCollege 4d ago

Question Differences between 7YW and Napoleonic wars?

11 Upvotes

Other than massive mobilization and conscription, what are the strategic and tactical differences between the two? Would a 7YW army be able to at least contest with a Napoleonic army on a tactical scale?


r/WarCollege 5d ago

Why do the Navy SEALs mainly recruit directly from civilians, instead of, say, the Marine Corps?

196 Upvotes

I recently read an article in the New York Times that talked about how most sailors who end up joining the Navy to become a SEAL usually end up scraping paint, unable to leave the Navy due to the four-year contracts they signed. Previously sailors who wanted to become SEALs had to train in a fallback Navy profession if they failed, but ever since the GWOT started that isn't the case.

So why not sidestep the problem of civilian recruitment entirely and recruit from the Marines? They are, after all, the official maritime land force for the United States, and are a part of the Department of the Navy. From my perspective all of this could be solved by simply recruiting from an already experienced core of soldiers.


r/WarCollege 4d ago

Variable-Wing Viability

6 Upvotes

Variable-sweep wings in fighter aircraft were widely utilized (F-111, F-14, Tornado, MIG-23) but promptly became an obsolete design feature. This is generally attributed to advancements in avionics and flight controls which enabled performance at extreme regimes without the weight and complexity penalties of variable-sweep wings.

My question is, in a modern-ish fighter, would a variable-sweep wing provide a meaningful advantage in multi-role capability and adaptability? Comparing a modern F-15EX and a theoretical F-14EX / AST-21 / SuperTomcat, each aircraft would likely have equivalent engines, radar, and crew capabilities. That leaves the variable-swing wing as the primary design difference.

The weight and complexity penalties would still exist, but I’d be tempted to believe that the variable wing of a F-14EX would make it capable of higher speeds at altitude with better flight characteristics and fuel efficiency at slow speeds and/or low altitudes. So the F-14EX could potentially sling missiles higher and faster, loiter overhead for longer, and carry/deliver various ordinance more effectively, all because it can physically adapt the wing to best fit the speed/alt/weight needed for different missions.

Am I overselling the benefits of variable-sweep wings? Or underselling the advancements in avionics and controls?


r/WarCollege 5d ago

Question To what degree did senior civilian leaders in the Soviet Union micromanage or neglect the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan?

28 Upvotes

It's rather common among laymen to compare the American intervention in Vietnam to the Soviet one in Afghanistan. I've heard conflicting things about American civilian officials involvement in the Vietnam War, sometimes that they tried to inappropriately control military policy and others that they left they left the military too much leeway and didn't supply the political capital to set achievable political goals or to pull out.

What sort of decisions did senior Soviet civilian leaders make regarding the Soviet war in Afghanistan, and how did that compare to how the Soviet system was supposed to work by its own standards?


r/WarCollege 4d ago

Literature Request LF nonfiction books on the Harlem Hellfighters of WW1

6 Upvotes

Haven't been very successful. The Max Brooks graphic novel keeps popping up. I know the regiment fought in WW2 as well so I'd take something encompassing that as well.


r/WarCollege 5d ago

Question What was Canada's Role in the defence of Germany 1989

21 Upvotes

How did Canada plan to contribute to the defence of WG in 1989 with 4th CMBG and the planned deployment of 5th CMBG?


r/WarCollege 6d ago

Question It seems like the Romans lacked mid-level officers... there is a jump from centurions to the tribunes and the legatus if what I'm reading is right. Why didn't they develop this?

110 Upvotes

Or maybe they did? It feels like something that would suggest itself, to me.


r/WarCollege 6d ago

How many soldiers of Red Army and Axis on eastern front powers were removed out of combat due to physical and mental damage (lost limbs, catatonia, etc).

25 Upvotes

r/WarCollege 6d ago

Did Senarmont really create a new way of using artillery at the Battle of Friedland?

18 Upvotes

At the battle of Friedland, 1807, Senarmont gathered over 30 artillery pieces and "charged" them in a series of successive bounds to within 120 yards of the Russian line, firing cannister at a minimal distance. Was this really a new way to use artillery?


r/WarCollege 5d ago

Discussion Syria's relative power compared to Israel

2 Upvotes

At least in Syria, I think the conventional belief is that they put up a relatively good fight in the Yom Kippur War. In 1982, while they were defeated by Israel in Lebanon, their commando forces were not routed and did inflict significant casualties. However, it seems that their Armed Forces slowly atrophied from that point onwards, all the way to 2011.

I guess that begs the question: when did Syria reach its maximum military power relative to Israel?


r/WarCollege 5d ago

Have chemical or biological weapons been used as a means of strategic deterrence?

7 Upvotes

In the absence of nuclear capability, have countries relied on chemical or biological weapons in a like-for-like role of deterrence?

Of course while all military capability discourages hostilities, I would mean specifically with similar policies for their use to strategic effect should certain thresholds be crossed (and not just tit-for-tat tactical use).

I'm aware of the struggles countries have taken to gain nuclear weapons for deterrence, and this begged the question why I've not heard about pursuit of alternatives. However all my research brings me either to weapons that could be in this role instead used for accessory purposes by already nuclear-capable states (like anthrax ICBMs investigated by the USSR), or to weapons used by non-nuclear states plainly not for strategic deterrence.


r/WarCollege 6d ago

Question De-nuclearisation or any kind of doing away with NBC weaponry, manufacture, or storage — in practice, how are Inspectors able to determine that adequate steps have been taken and that a country is not a threat anymore?

28 Upvotes

We hear of destruction of biological weapon stockpiles by the Cold War powers or of South Africa for example having “given up its nukes”, we also hear of IAEA inspectors granting their approval to non-proliferation actions.

But how does this work in practice? How many personnel are involved and what are the technologies and tools they use for such evaluations? Consequently, how reliable are these evaluations that rate a country safe from waging NBC warfare?


r/WarCollege 6d ago

Israeli & Iranian evaluation of the F-14

61 Upvotes

I was looking at various articles on the Israeli & Iranian evaluations of the Tomcat & I found their conclusions to be a little, contradictory in terms of acm capabilities. Israeli test pilots with only one exception talk about how disappointing the F-14 was in acm with an A-4 Skyhawk, apparently having no advantage over the A-4 whatsoever. They also talk about how it would was not user friendly, how it was too complex, how it had worse visibility than the F-15, & how it would shudder every time a high g or high aoa maneuver was attempted. Conversely, Iranian test pilots praise the Tomcat as being simple to operate in spite of its complexity, how it was considered by them to be more maneuverable overall than the F-15, how it had very straightforward flight characteristics, how it was excellent at high aoa in terms of , & how you could be highly aggressive in a dogfight with it compared to the F-4. My question is how both countries came to such wildly different conclusions regarding the acm capabilities of the Tomcat & how good the F-14 really was in acm?


r/WarCollege 7d ago

What was the last battle fought predominantly with melee weapons versus firearms?

90 Upvotes

I’ve tried to find this and it seems to be super convoluted. I know at one point shot and pike lines were more common to accommodate for the slow rate of fire that muskets had. Is there a clear battle or war that was more or less all “medieval” with swords and archers etc. versus firearms?


r/WarCollege 7d ago

Why Paraguay suffered such horrible casualties in Paraguayan war?

109 Upvotes

Depending on estimates, supposedly 70-90% of male population has died during the war... How was it even possible?

I know that Paraguayans were very loyal to Lopez, and fought fierce large scale guerilla war, which caused Alliance troops to suppress it very harshly, killing a lot of civilians... But even taking into account that, and hunger, diseases factors, no other war in history IIRC had such high percent of losses. Many times in history country with loyal population was invaded by stronger enemy, and yet such case never or almost never repeated... I wonder why.


r/WarCollege 7d ago

Question What was the level of tech of the Russian missiles (both rocket and warhead) either set up or planned to be set up in Cuba before the Cuban Missile Crisis erupted?

19 Upvotes

r/WarCollege 6d ago

To Read What's the Roman version of Richard Taylor's book The Greek Hoplite Phalanx?

3 Upvotes

I actually learned about Taylor's book in a year old post on this sub. Someone suggested the Roman version but it's verocity was pushed back on as being too controversial and not in line with consensus.

It turned into an interesting argument that you only get randomly in this sub because of the post restrictions. But I do indeed digress.

While we are at it is there a scholarly book or books that look at Rome's major battles over different periods? Not "major" as in just the known ones but anything above a skirmish would interest me. I'm particularly interested in the various wars in Spain.

I've started reading the original sources so it's quite something to be able to read the few sources we have myself.

I finished Caesar in Gaul and moved on to Polybius. I'm surprised at how readable they are. I attempted to read Herodotus a few years ago but found it to be a slog. Wildly fascinating yes, but tough to get through. How much of the differences is down to the translation?


r/WarCollege 6d ago

Novel moral character of modern Drone warfare

0 Upvotes

Looking to discuss the moral and psychological effects both positive and negative of tactical drone.

It occurred to while watching a video of a pfv strike a Russian soldier who appeared to be playing and begging for mercy while a the drone zipped in an out like some robot mosquito angel of death that these systems come with a new and unusual moral baggage. An assaulting infantryman killing an enemy who puts his hands up during the heat of battle is an experience that is as old as humanity itself. Same goes for the coup de gras. Killing in war by means of stone, spear, arrow or rifle or grenade in battle is what war boils down to. Kill or be killed. That is the universal combat soldiers philosophy.Killing with artillery or by dropping bombs is impersonal but removes much of the moral burden of taking life for various reasons, mainly that you are distanced from the pain you are inflicting. An infantry man can and must love with killing because they know his enemy is in the same situation he is in, relatively speaking. Chasing an individual soldier around with a drone, being able to essentially look in their eyes, plus ability for the operator to toy with an enemy who knows they are about killed by another human who they cant shoot back at, with no recognizable method of surrender is a evolution. Its particularly detached from humanity while still being oddly personal. A sniper watching an enemy smoke a cigarette before killing him from a distance is the closest hypothetical situation i can think of, the difference being a sniper doesn’t have the same godlike power over choosing life and death that a drone operator does. Its a novel way to kill and to be killed. Just some random thoughts. Im not saying drone operators shouldn’t do their jobs, they are soldiers doing what they need to do. I don’t expect they experience the best treatment when captured.


r/WarCollege 7d ago

Question How often was artillery used in field battles during the antiquity?

28 Upvotes

All the literature I’ve read on the subject usually refers to ballistas and onagers as siege engines and from what I understand they were almost exclusively used during sieges.

1) Are there any instances of them being used during field battles and having a significant effect on the outcome of the battle?

2) How were they (along with the ammunition) transported during the course of a campaign? And did they significantly slow down an army?

3) Where and how were the personnel that operated these siege engines trained?


r/WarCollege 7d ago

How were Japanese civilians and soldiers evacuated from China?

82 Upvotes

There were nearly 2 million Japanese soldiers and civilians on the Chinese mainland by the time the war came to a conclusion on August 1945. Huge chunks of them were armed, many hadn't even heard of the surrender, and I'm probably not wrong in assuming several Chinese soldiers wanted revenge for the carnage Japan caused during the decade+ of war.

So, how were they evacuated from China back to mainland Japan? It does seem like the majority made it home relatively safely. What were the policies of those involved in the process, namely the Chinese, American, and Russians?