Messages

16

Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 31, 2019, 11:47:40 pm »

There is no such thing as the president of Holland.

Firstly, because we don't have a president.
Secondly, because we're not Holland.

What you're looking for is Prime Minister of the Netherlands.

17

Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 30, 2019, 03:39:12 pm »

You don't understand what a psychopath is.

I do actually. Even if you don't have the same definition as I have, it doesn't matter. Military personnel need to be of sound judgement and no type of mental disorder will make them any more effective.

18

Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 30, 2019, 11:58:33 am »

Indeed scientifically you're right. As you say, it's workable and we both know what it means practically and enables you to differentiate between jobs in the military of which that are combat and which are Combat Support and Combat Service Support.

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 30, 2019, 10:38:47 am »

It depends on what you define as combat, though. You can use an incredibly broad definition ('Anyone who is in an active combat zone', or even 'Anyone carrying or managing a weapon') or a very narrow one ('Anyone who can be expected under normal circumstances to come under direct fire'). But even that leaves a large grey area.
If (I'm just talking layman terms here) you're an engineer, your job is not to fight people but to support those who do. But a combat engineer is still quite likely to come indirect or even direct fire, despite fighting not being their primary job. But imagine being in a large-caliber artillery unit. The changes of you coming under direct fire are small, but you are, unlike the engineer, actively trying to kill people. When does your supporting become fighting, and when does your fighting become supporting?

Your social science studies are showing. In the military we prefer clear and defined terminology.

'Anyone who can be expected under normal circumstances to come under direct fire'

This is the usual military definition of combat. Artillerymen wouldn't argue they have seen combat, but nobody would deny their role inside the part of combat.
Combat engineers are classified as fighting units usually because they do not operate in their organic units, rather they get attatched to infantry units.

@olafson another sidenote: dedicated force protection units are not counted as combat units. This does not mean they cannot see combat. The force protection of the Dutch Air Force saw combat frequently considering they also did nearby patrols.

Other soldiers would do it that are equally cappable of fighting on a front line? And they would probably have to fight since supply routes would be attacked and military bases as well?

The thing you are horribly missing is that military =/= combat troops.
The other point is, supply lines do not often get physically attacked by enemy units in a conventional war. More likely they come under artillery or air attack but that does not count as combat.
The reason people nowadays think supply lines get attacked so often is because COIN operation for the past 25 years. In conventional warfare, territory is more defined thus logistics units safer from direct fire.

@bigpete another thing: you are very sadly mistaken in the fact that the military needs psychopaths to do the hardest fighting. This is hilariously far from the point. An anger-based aggressive unit does not perform better in combat than a more balanced unit. Units filled with more intelligent personnel who do not have a sense of bloodlust perform much better in an overall campaign. Why? Every conflict for the past 20 years has been insanely more complicated and they are only getting more complicated. In order to be an effective unit, military personnel need to be able to make sense of what they are doing and they need officers to explain it to them. So no, psychopathic units are not more effective.

I do not want to call them psychopaths, but take the USMC: a unit made to be shock troopers with aggressive conventional-oriented mindset. They do not perform better in combat than Dutch, Norwegian or English units, who are signficantly less aggressive. On the contrary. The USMC has made countless gross judgement calls in Iraq and Afghanistan simply because of the reason not even their higher-ups had any clue of what they were actually DOING.

tl;dr: in order to do your military job well, you need to understand what you're doing in the grand scheme of things. Being mentally unstable has no place in that. They'll make everything into a hammer-and-nail-problem. War is not like that any more.

20

Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 29, 2019, 02:14:15 pm »

So Netherlands with 25k military would have 2,8k people fighting.     

Not 25k in military. Our ministry of defence is 52.000 ith 42.000 military. I really don't know where your numbers are coming from mate.
Also I was talking in-theatre. As I said there will be huge differences in the different operational commands.

For example

Out of 18000 people in the land component, we have 7 battalions of active combat unit, so ~4200 fighting units.
In the airforce the numbers are much different. There are about 7000 people in the Dutch Air Force but only a couple of hundred are pilots, meaning combat.

21

Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 29, 2019, 12:49:27 pm »

I believe he meant a majority are there to support the minority who do the fighting (logistics and such).

Yes, exactly this.

As I mentioned before, the ratio is about 1:8 nowadays I think.

So you are saying that if there was a total war between let's say Germany and France those 8 out of 9 still wouldn't do the fighting?

Not exactly, there still would be some logistics units that'd come under fire. But yes, in general there's 8 out of 9 people who generally wouldn't be fighting.

22

Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 29, 2019, 08:28:55 am »

I believe he meant a majority are there to support the minority who do the fighting (logistics and such).

Yes, exactly this.

As I mentioned before, the ratio is about 1:8 nowadays I think.

23

Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 28, 2019, 06:23:38 pm »

We all know how military works. You have a mass of people of which majority is there to get shot and die and small percentage of psychopaths that don't mind or enjoy killing and those do most of the killing.  That is why conscription is stupid, you just get more people that are ready to get killed but not kill.
Non of you 'glories of war'  seeking boys that are on this forum have killed anyone or even attempted to. If you did though you are either a psychopath or you are enjoying your PTSD.
But yes I agree coloration is not strong. Conscription army is expensive and shit, only thing it might be positive for is that you might learn some discipline and improve physique but than again it is wasting time when you coupd be learning or meeting a potential partner.

You really have no idea how the military works mate.

The majority is not there to get shot and die. Not at all. As I said, the majority is there to support a majority who do the fighting, of which most do not die. Nobody here claims to hunt the glories of war and you really don't have to have been in combat and either be a psychopath or have PTSD. Those are two extremes with a huge amount of in-between.

Third of, conscription army is not expensive at all. Considering most of them will be actually conscripted and only a small percentage professional, the biggest cost of any military (personnel) will be the smallest considering conscripts barely get paid. They also don't have to go on expensive training programs considering they're usually much shorter for conscripts, too.
And 'time could be better spent...' okay that is a matter of opinion but the longest conscription period I have heard of is two years so in the grand scheme of things.... not that long.

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 27, 2019, 10:26:06 pm »

Less professional soldiers that join for glories of war = less psychopaths

No those two really aren't correlated.

25

Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 26, 2019, 11:44:07 pm »

More has happened on NATO missions the past 15 years though. UN missions are shit.

EDIT: Holy shit that ad is embarassing.

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 26, 2019, 11:15:22 pm »

You think people join the army because they want to use weapon systems in real combat and for 'the glory of going to war'?

yeah that's pretty much what soldiers want =\

For example there is about 15,000 personal in the RCAF but only 100 or so aircraft used in combat.

That's not weird at all.... the rate between combat personnel and support personnel in a combat theatre are about 1:8 to 1:12 nowadays and that's considering most of personnel in-theatre is land component. The air forces usually have a much higher rating so that's really not surprising...

No the reason is because of budget cuts, scandal of the past 5-10 years (Not just NLD) and the fact militaries around the West are struggling to explain why they still are relevant given we have enjoyed an unprecedented period of peace. People somehow think there will never be armed conflict again. In a world where everyone is on Social Media, the defense forces are still printing newspapers to explain why they're cool, while they have done next to nothing to make themselves competative in the job market. People just don't want to work there anymore. Given the economic growth, things aren;t helping.

Venezuela is getting spicy. I don't really see a way this is going to go down peacefully, as Maduro has the army's backing, and Guadio is either going to get whacked or arrested if no other major developments occur.

Yeah we're getting worried, too =P (no sarcasm intended)

27

Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 26, 2019, 01:20:00 pm »

Recruits are hard to come by because the folks coming of prime military age now have lived their whole lives in a never-ending war in other people's countries and the delusion of 'protecting your country' by means of bombing others half a world away has crumbled.

No that's really not why recruiment is down.

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 22, 2019, 06:21:19 pm »

Well this was obviously going to happen.

Spoiler

[close]

Even says "those who failed". U.S. Military, amongst many others, are failing to meet recruitment numbers. This is how they make do.

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 18, 2019, 07:54:55 am »

In other news:

https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/ah0p6m/england_in_a_nutshell/

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Off Topic / Re: The General Political Thread

« on: January 16, 2019, 02:23:39 pm »

and C7 are beauties as well. 

Can you please.... PLEASE not say anything positive about the C7?

Wait, that shit is used outside of Canada and Norway?

Standard issue Dutch Military rifle.

WE do have certain mods on it: floating barrel, different stock, different scope and a forward grip with detatchable bipod (C7NLD).

It's shit.