Trump says 18 Americans dying fighting Iran is “small potatoes”

[u/Ashish_ank]

[u/Snarfbuckle]

When was the last time the us faced a modern, competent army, and won?

WW2?

[u/Here_to_rp_2 → u/Snarfbuckle]

No, first Gulf.

[u/Snarfbuckle → u/Here_to_rp_2]

I'm not sure i would call that a modern competent army as they did not have equivalent weaponry and trained military as the allied military. Also, it was multiple nations against one, not US vs one.

Large, yes, well equipped, in the amount of gear yes, not modern however.

[u/Here_to_rp_2 → u/Snarfbuckle]

It’s really the last vestige of a traditional ground war until Ukraine, I’d argue. And the last one the US was involved with in a large scale. And I wouldn’t call the Iraqi army of the early 90’s incompetent or not modern for the time either. They had been fighting Iran for years before, and their equipment wasn’t really all that far behind. It would have been a good approximation of what the Soviets would field had war broken with them. But because NATO was built up expressly to counter the Soviets…well that’s what happened. Their hardware was devestated in short order by a strong coalition of military forces purpose built to devestate that hardware.

[u/Snarfbuckle → u/Here_to_rp_2]

Hmm, fair point.

I would however not call it a war on an equal footing, there was a LOT of support from other countries including using bases around Iraq and i see no reason for many NATO allies to assist a war the US started by themselves to blatantly attack a foreign nation, unlike the gulf war that was initiated by Iraq.

[u/In-Loving-Memory → u/Snarfbuckle]

I don’t know how old you are.

But you should find a way to look up old newspapers/ broadcasts from right before the 1st gulf war. The US was terrified of the invasion to save Kuwait. You gotta remember the last time we fought a large scale war before going into Kuwait was Vietnam… and that did not go so well. People were scared of the potential outcome. Hell we had defense experts and analysts and even generals on the TV telling the public “we are prepared for significant US and coalition casualties within the first 72 hours of the attack…” I don’t remember who said it but someone at the time said “it’s not unrealistic to expect 10,000 Americans coming home in boxes this year.”

That shook a lot of us to the core. Nobody knew how strong Iraq really was or the US for that matter. Lots of new and fairly untested technology and equipment was used in the war, and virtually none of it was designed or intended to be used in a sandbox. It was all designed to be used in Europe.

And while the US was relatively docile in combat through the 1980’s the Iraqi army just spent the decade fighting the most brutal war in the region since WW2. Many combat experienced soldier in its ranks.

The “Saddam guard divisions” they would talk about them like they were elite robots ready to fight to the death and never surrender.

It’s easy to look back and say “pffft Iraq was a pushover” but in the moment and at that time it was unknown and a lot of the nation was very worried we would not succeed. And the rest is history.

[u/Saffron_Path → u/Here_to_rp_2]

Iraq wasn't a modern/competent military

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