Which country's Soldier was most efficient?

Regardless of what the outcome of the war was , considering the information about ww2 you know - who was the most efficient soldier? This can consider factors such as discipline, handling of weapons , strike rates (losses received Vs losses inflicted on enemy), military doctrine ..etc

As far as i know, i think it should be the German Soldier. I have read articles where in Barbarossa, the Russians always preferred to fire at Italians and Hungarians, rather than the Germans. How true is this statement? Please pour in your replies. If a thread of similar nature has been created, please transfer this post to the relevant thread.

 

Paratroops. Could only fight with what dropped with them, and sometimes they lost that and had to inprovise

 

Idd say the Finns , for efficently protection their country and achieving most of their goals .

 

It's a man wits and courage that makes effeciency, not what his passport says. Besides so many people changed nationalities during 1939 and 1945.

 

Ghurkas....Maoris...Or Anzacs in particular.

 

I´d agree with Heinrich, as we stopped the Red Army on several occasions. The Finnish soldier is my favourite too and that is just by checking the odds facing him.

 

When taking every combatant into account, I would definitely have to go with Finland. All in all Finland's military wasn't particularly strong, but despite its small size it held an excellent quality. Though I can imagine that much of its qualitative edge against the Russians had disappeared by 1941 when compared to how well they performed in the Winter War, given the extensive Russian reforms in 1940-1941.

And when it comes to the major combatants, while I think that the Germans performed best all in all, I tend to think that the American soldier performed best on an individual level, much because the Garand --a modern semi-automatic rifle for the time-- was standard issue, whereas the German infantry doctrine centered around protecting a machinegunner letting him do most of the killing, while most of the soldiers were armed with bolt-action rifles.

 

Must be the Germans - after all it took the whole world (excluding those Axis buddies) to defeat Germany after almost 6 years.

Regards
Kruska

 

The Italians and Hungarians were poorly trained and equipped. The Russians smartly attacked the Axis flanks (manned mostly by Hungarians, Italians and Romanians) during Operation Uranus of the Battle of Stalingrad which allowed the Soviets to encircle the German 6th army.

 

I have to agree with Kruska here. The Germans had the best trained and most sufficient soldiers during ww2. IMHO

 

The winner

 

True , but they didnt achieve their goal ..wich was creating a 1000 year reich..sry ..close but no cigar for ze Germans

 

LOL:lol:

 

I think at the beginning of the war it would definitely have been Germany since they had some pretty harsh training disciplines and overall were kept in conditions that would have kept them fit to a certain extent. Due to lack of supplies and such the machines really started to wear down over time. Finland and the United States come in at a close second for me, partially because I'm not as sure of other nations.

Various commonwealth nations on paper could have done really well but were not put into action as much as they could have been so tough call on them. If I had to choose between one I would probably choose the Indian armies. I'm excluding Canada since we had our confederacy in 1867.

Sometimes the winner is simply the one with more bullets, it doesn't necessarily mean they are all elite troops.

 

US Marines in the Pacific. FTW.

 

You mean the FFF?, come on urgh

Regards
Kruska

 

I cant imagine there being a "right or wrong" answer to this, but I will say that the "Ivan" was able to function and accomplish his task with the least amount of resources of any other power in WW2... I cant imagine any of the Western powers taking the same beating in 41' and marching in the streets of Berlin 4 years later.


On a side not, the German war machine proved its worth.

 

Approximately 16 million men and women served in the US Military during our years of envolvment in WW2, of which approximately 418,500 were killed in action.

That looks like a pretty good ratio, and should and could be translated into "efficiency" after a fashion don’t you think? Was that the best? I dunno, but not too shabby.

Doing the "most with the least"? That would be a tough call between the Finns and the Afrika Korps, both lost but performed well with their limited resources.

 

Not exactly applicable in this sort of situation. Look at it objectivly: The Germans defeated the French(Who were supposed to have the best army in the world at the time), gave the British hell in Africa, took on the endless manpower of Russia for 4 years held the line in Italy until the end as well as held back the Allies for a whole year when they landed amongst the rear-echelon units in France. All this pretty much by themselves, without any large help aside from Hungary and Romania.

Considering those facts, I would say that the Germans were more efficient then the foe that they had faced; it would be difficult to argue that they weren't, just as Kruska said, it took the largest amounts of men and industries on Earth to defeat them.

My second choice would be the British however, as they had achieved overall victory on all of the Fronts they had fought on especially when they were spread paper thin in the early years. This tells of their efficiency in holding the line and eventually pushing forward.

 

Hello brndirt1,

In a way you are right - I was about to place the US there as well - but, taking dollars and cents into account in terms of military goods, I wouldn't be surprised to see the US GI, as the least efficient soldier during WWII or probably any war.

This is why I also backed off from the Soviets - sorry Slon - the land lease they received was gigantic - Germany didn't have such support at all.
So the title would still go to Germany

Regards
Kruska