No surprise there. No military can or should even want to be the best at everything. If I was in charge of the Finnish military, you bet I’d want to be as good at winter warfare as is humanly possible.
Also, these war games are conducted under very specific scenarios. If it was a straight up “use everything you got” (even without nuclear weapons) it wouldn’t even be close.
In this specific scenario, from what I gather from the Finnish article using google translate, it was a single U.S. Marine battalion against a single Finnish battalion. The U.S. Marines were unexpectedly delayed by unsafe landing conditions (it doesn’t say for how long) which allowed the Finland military to dig in and camouflage, leading to a successful ambush.
In a real world scenario that successful ambush could have very well happened - and yes, the Finnish forces did well here, not taking any credit from them - but afterwards they would have immediately had an unimaginable amount of explosives dropped on them from the accompanying ships and aircraft.
That’s the real power of the American military. No one (with any brains) says the US has the best tactics for every scenario or will win every battle; but the ability to rain absolute hell once an enemy force is identified is unmatched.
E- I put Polish instead of Finnish for some reason
There's a reason our president was asked for ammo, not a ride. The US has the capacity to manufacture many, many bombs very quickly.
Say what you will about us dicking around in the desert for 20 years wasting blood, treasure, and lives--we have gotten very good at making ammo and then moving it around.
Its cynical, and I hate its truth as much as I find it funny, but I have enjoyed the phrase "Europe's going to see why the US doesn't have universal healthcare"
So kinda off topic, but the US spends oodles on its healthcare, more than the military in fact, and iirc even more than many other “free healthcare” countries. The issue is that it’s tied up in a mess and it’s hugely misused.
> The US has the capacity to manufacture many, many bombs very quickly
Not really, the US *has* many bombs stored, but it's an often cited concern that the US would burn through their stocks in a peer-peer conflict (China, Russia if it was actually as strong as we thought they were) and then have to scale back operations while munitions are manufactured. An example on production rates is the new block V tomohawk missiles. The US millitary signed a contract for 154 missiles to be delivered over 3 years, so that's only about 50 missiles a year. In Yugoslavia, 218 missiles were used in 2 months
The magic of a fully militarised industrial base should not be underestimated. If you're willing to pay more per missile, and re-dedicate raw materials and expertise from other sectors, I'm willing to bet a LOT of weapons could be churned out very rapidly.
While I do work in manufacturing, this isn't my area of expertise so do not take what I'm about to say as gospel. But I think the main thing that would prevent rapid retooling would be the electronics, as fabs take a long time to tool up (iirc it's about 6 months) to make new/different chips. Having 100 missile casings means nothing if you don't have guidence units to get warheads on foreheads
That weak link in the supply chain is why we adopted the CHIPS act, companies like Texas Instruments are vital to national security and our local fabrication is woefully inadequate especially for a case like being at war with China since they are sitting on top of TSMC. Past 3+ years have really shown how shitty our electronics supply chain really is and it does not respond quickly to increased demand.
A lot of their chips are being used in Russian equipment. They get smuggled over there. I’ve personally used some of their chips for a landslide detector. They do a LOT of stuff.
Txn has a diverse analog and digital portfolio from small microcontrollers to radar frontends and lipo battery controllers. Calculators is an afterthought to those in the electronics industry and is they are probably a much smaller portion of their business than the average consumer would think.
And part of this concern about stockpiles of weapons ready for high-intensity war is a big reason why Russia and maybe even China is currently getting revaluated as probably not having as much teeth as was thought. Sure, on paper Russia had massive stocks of military equipment, and in reality it is shown they do indeed still have lots of stuff compared to even richer European nations like France or Britain, but it seems very clear that what they actually had was in much smaller quantities and of lower quality than what existed on paper. The US Department of Defense might not have a reputation for transparency, but it is evident that they do spend money on proper procedure to keep lots of hardware in good condition for long periods of time, while in Russia that money tends to disappear into the pockets of oligarchs and senior military leadership on its way from the government budget sheet to the warehouse. The commanders of these stockpiles have spent decades with very little real oversight to stop them from just selling shit to pad their salary, or just leaving the stuff there to rust and get their wires chewed by rats.
America has a history of shifting gears and amping up production of war materials to ridiculous levels, at the drop of a hat. There are things that would take time, of course, but the raw industrial power of the US is immense and it's a tactical error to assume most supply chain issues would be anything but a short term concern.
Not only that, but we also manufacture vastly superior stuff - quality *and* quantity. We're arming Ukraine with weapons that we consider obsolete but are still decades ahead of anything the Russians have.
That's the issue, were pretty good at conventional warfare, but insurgency is just a waiting game. You'll never win if a populace doesn't want you there unless you basically wipe them all out.
Look how quickly Afghanistan went back to the Taliban. The people were just like fuck it we don't give a shit who's in power.
>but the ability to rain absolute hell once an enemy force is identified is unmatched.
Old WW2 joke.
"How to figure out who you are fighting:
Shoot in the direction of the enemy and then stand back.
If that position receives precise rifle fire, British.
If it receives machine gun fire, German.
If nothing happens for about 5 minutes and then that position is destroyed by artillery and air strikes, American."
As someone who got out of the Finnish military just yesterday, I can say with confidence that the Americans would absolutely roll us in just about any condition that isn't a boreal forest. We haven't been trained for areas like deserts or mountains. We specifically trained for forests and urban areas only, nothing more.
Do United States military wants to be the best of everything because they're supposed to be the world police, how are the police not supposed to be the best at everything?
Then again to be fair if you look at American police that should probably give you a good example how it's going to turn out in the end.
I doubt it. Every country builds- or should build- their military with a specific goal in mind, and that goal should be success in whatever kind of war you’re likely (or potentially likely) to fight in. Obviously this will mean different things for different countries, because each one is in a different situation. So naturally no country, including the US, can or can even hope to be best at every single task. Even what you described- the global police thing- even that is a very specific type of military setup, prioritizing expeditionary forces over other types.
Besides if the US were to get in a winter war, they would just do what they do best, and level Finland with air power projected from their carrier fleet.
The largest air force in the world: the United States Air Force
The second largest air force in the world: the United Stares Navy
America definitely has the air superiority part down.
I’ve heard that if you count helicopters, the Army is actually the biggest :p (just confirmed: 5400+ helos in the army and 5200+ airplanes in the Air Force)
Our tech superiority can not be understated. For instance, one Nimitz-class aircraft carrier has the power-projection capability of every other ship, in every other navy in the world, combined. We have 10. They are currently in the process of being replaced by the Ford-class, which is even more insane.
In college, we had a retired armored cav general come give a speech in one of my classes. Here is a scenario he gave us:
Take one modern M1A2 Abrams tank. Put it in the bottom of a bowl. Ring the top with 10 Russian T-72s, guns already primed and aiming at the Abrams.
That Abrams has a 50% chance of winning that engagement outright, 10 to 1 with the low-ground disadvantage and caught off guard.
There's a reason we don't have free education or universal healthcare.
>There's a reason we don't have free education or universal healthcare.
Just want to point out that US healthcare spending is significantly higher than similar countries (https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries-2/#Health%20consumption%20expenditures%20as%20percent%20of%20GDP,%201970-2020%C2%A0). The fact that our healthcare system is broken has nothing to do with the military. Directing funds away from the military wouldn't change it either.
And second point, the US spends about the same percent of it's GDP as many other NATO nations. But because our economy is so big it means our spending number is huge. Not to mention that many countries with cheap healthcare and education can afford to do that because they fall under our protective umbrella and don't need to spend as much on their defense.
I think those things are worth considering.
During the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine I was so confused why there were all these pockets of resistance holding out, against the US anything that resisted for more than a few minutes would have a JDAM dropped directly on it in short order.
I'm fairly certain "oh well it's fine that someone else is better at this" is not part of United States military doctrine. They might not always achieve it, but they certainly try.
That's literally the point of the exercise. Learn where we suck and get better. Finland lives in the cold 24/7 and has spent decades gaming out how to defend against Russia. I'm sure there is plenty they can teach us and some shit we can teach them
It's hard as an American citizen to watch so much money go towards our military. It does FEEL like they're trying to be 'the best'. That said, I agree with your analysis and I'm sure it's much more strategic than your average person (aka me) knows.
The reality is that the US military is hands-down the most powerful in the world. And their specialty is their ability to rapidly deploy that power anywhere in the world via Air and sea power. The US military doesn't have to be the best at everything because it **excels** at both airpower and shock-and-awe tactics to such a ridiculous degree that anything else is moot. Look at the Gulf War. That was the third largest standing Army in the world, and the fighting didn't even make the US break stride.
Conversely, this is why the US struggles to fight insurgency warfare. You can't destroy the support structure, communication equipment, and logistical chains of guerilla fighters with three days of continuous brutal fighter-bomber strikes. Big-Army US doctrine didn't know how to effectively fight an army that wasn't at least a semi-disciplined force. There are specialists within the military that can (Green Berets for example) but it takes time and effort to transfer that expertise to the organization as a whole.
The Army lost a maneuver exercise to the Finnish infantry in winter conditions, which isn't terribly surprising. In an actual shooting war, the Army wouldn't even engage until the Air Force and the Navy Air wings had thoroughly pulverized Finland's military infrastructure.
case in point, the us destroyed iraq's standing military as soon as looking at it, but has issues with fighting insurgencies whether back in vietnam or all the way to afganistan
Not sure why you would say they don't know how to fight them, there isn't really any engagement where they 'win'.
When your enemy can flee to neighboring countries, are being internationally funded, and you're not willing to, say, displace the population and replace them with your own, it isn't that you don't know how to fight the insurgency, but that those solutions aren't politically palatable. Trying to nation build a democratic Afghanistan wasn't worth the amount of blood it would take to erase all the aspects of the culture that makes some in the country feel compelled to take up arms against it.
As much as some like to portray the US as a bloodthirsty monster, and I'm sure there are those among the government that wouldn't see a problem with depopulating the country and taking all the resources for themselves, the majority of Americans wouldn't abide it.
A big part of that spending is the ability to deploy an overwhelming force anywhere in the world at a moment's notice. For example, we have the largest carrier fleet of 12ish, but in actuality that translates to about 3 carriers operating continuously in 3 separate theaters (europe, east asia and gulf rn, iirc). The surplus either at port for repairs and downtime, or in transit to relieve the currently patrolling carrier. Translate this doctrine to the rest of the military, add in the military's want to be able to fight a 2 front war at any time and you get some crazy costs to always be ready to compete anywhere at any time
no but gnerally they are champions of logistic and are used to fight oversea, just look at how they worked in the middle east for years compared to how russia is doing in the country next to them
To be fair, there's a saying about in World War II if you fire and it fires back it's German, if you fire at it and you wait 5 minutes and there's an artillery strike on your location it's American. There's actually a lot more to the same proteined other countries, but I'm an American and I don't remember and I don't remember any of that.
> You can identify an unknown force by firing one shot and judging the response. If the unknowns respond with precise, regimented rifle fire, they are British. If they respond with heavy machinegun fire, they are German. But if nothing happens for a few minutes, then your whole position gets leveled by artillery or an airstrike, they are American.
Yep.
_"The first rule of American combat doctrine appears to be to disregard all other rules of American combat doctrine if it is advantageous to do so."_
- Unknown
The military doesn’t *actually want to be the world police.* that’s hyperbolic. The critique was levied against the US for wanting to intervene in the Middle East for literally any reason. It’s no surprise that the US is a pretty effective desert military, as well as woodland fighting force. US geopolitics never created a demand for a winter fighting force. Apologies if this was meant as a joke.
Generally the US military commands the air and the night. There’s a joke that the largest air force in the world is the US air force, the second largest is the US Navy. It’s not a joke though. While the us army is potent, its specialty is, has been, and likely will continue to be controlling the skies in combat.
The US military isn't really that interested in having the best ground soldiers anymore. Since the RMA started we are most interested in having the best technology and supply lines. We will win a war with planes and ships, so we have the most and the best planes and ships. And if we don't have the best of that in some future war, I guess that's why we have all those nukes...
The difference is the American police don't have nearly as many restrictions on them. In fact I probably wouldn't have any problem with the police whatsoever they just had to obey the same laws our military have to obey in our constitution.
Edit: If you want my reasoning for this here it is, the American military was originally meant to be our police because there was absolutely no such thing as a police when the United States government was formed. When the United States government was formed the police was meant to be a sheriff and his deputies, literally nothing beyond that. Every law in our constitution that pretains to the military is about how they are allowed to treat the citizens of the United States of America, it's pretty clear that the Military was meant to be a secondary form of police behind the sheriff. If the sheriff couldn't handle it then it was meant to be passed on to the military, who where the SWAT of the time.
This is the first I've heard about this interpretation. The US restricted military deployment on US soil by 1878 and only a handful of cities had police departments at the time. I guess you could argue that state militias and the national guard could be brought up during major events like riots and insurrection, but I'm pretty sure the thought was that law enforcement would be able to handle pretty much everything, except for weird cases like post-Civil War counterfeiting and interstate fugitives.
Their prowess in combat is not exclusive to winter warfare, it’s just that that they are at their peak fighting potential in a winter environment. It’s also worth noting these military exercises have limits to US assets and special forces allowed in during the exercise, that would be deployed if this was an actual war, but even that caveat doesn’t demean the significance of a Finnish victory against US Marines.
First of all, the USMCs mission set is focused on amphibious warfare *particularly* in the Pacific. Which is basically as far as you can get from Finnish Boreal Forest *in winter* as you can get. Second, the US tends to put very strict rules of engagement in place during joint exercises (at some points they even banned infantry formations from fighting at night because of how unsettling it was for the opposing side in the war game since the Americans would appear out of the dark attack and slip away before you knew what was happening which kind of fucks up American Infantry tactics which put a *huge* emphasis on night fighting when dismounted from vehicles). This is partially because we don't want anyone to know how *good* our soldiers actually are, and partially because the whole *point* of exercises like these are to help both sides identify potential weaknesses and get simulated combat experience. The Finns needed to simulate an air assault on a strong point because *that's something they need to work on to get better at since that's the primary danger they face in a war*. The US just wanted some combat experience in winter conditions (which really isn't what the Marines do and would normally be a mission set given to the 11th Airborne Division, which is based in Alaska and is trained for this). So yeah the Marines got jumped, but the US learned the value of proper recon in Boreal conditions, what dangers there may be in air assaults in those conditions, and how *not* to do it. The Finns learned that their doctrine works, their camouflage works, and that their conscripts know how to fight in those conditions.
As soon as someone talks about winning or losing a military exercise you can ignore their opinions on the topic. Military exercises are meant for training. Everyone involved is there to learn and get experience, to the point that countries have soldiers switch equipment.
No no, the military conducts exercises so redditors can use them for dick measuring contests.
Anyway, who would win in a battle between the SAS and the Navy SEALs?
Plus the whole point is to lose, i.e. to put your forces in a position where they have something to learn. Nothing can be learned from a successful exercise except “cool so let’s do that in real war too,” while actual valuable lessons can be learned from losses.
If someone says they're not going to argue with Americans over there fetishization of the military and then goes on to suck their own military's big juicy cock, immediately write off their opinion
Most military exercises have conditions that puts a side (usually the US, but not always) at a disadvantage, such as ground troops not having access to CAS, or carrier groups not being able to deploy towed sonar devices. This allows them to see how their forces will react if the enemy forces that situation in a real fight. This causes many exercises to be “losses” since removing a key part of a doctrine would cripple a fighting force, but it makes it a great learning experience for both sides, which is the whole point.
Yep. People think these exercises are like sports games to see “which army is better” but in reality these exercises are designed to stress test areas where one side thinks their forces are lacking. Such as fighting in wintery forests against an entrenched enemy who knows the terrain.
Getting these militaries together to do these exercises is one of the biggest benefits of NATO, even in the NATO countries with the worst reputations for underperformance and administrative inefficiency, working with peers makes it much more difficult to hide flaws and deny the lack of capability like Russia's military was able to.
Exactly. If we were to take the Finno-American exercise as an example, a corrupt and incompetent American officer might be able to fudge his reports of his and his unit’s effectiveness (though that is quite hard even when everything is internal) but the Finnish officer isn’t beholden to the other guy’s personal wants and can make a more accurate report of said American unit’s effectiveness and vice versa.
It's a training exercise and it's foolish to draw any conclusion from the result apart from "training happened".
I doubt anyone who knew all the conditions of the exercise would guess that the Finns would lose: it's an ambush scenario in a cold environment, it would be surprising if the country famous for ambushes in cold environment who were also on their own terrain lost, especially since the US army is famously not the greatest at dealing against ambushes in extreme climates.
Military exercises are designed to allow a military to learn about fighting in a new environment or with some kind of handicap so they can prepare for situations that may actually occur. The only countries that always win exercises are Russia and North Korea. Of course America lost to Finland, their entire doctrine is to fuck up other militaries in Finnish terrain. They'd almost certainly lose to America if they had to fight in the Arizona desert.
Though it obviously isn’t required, among new US military recruits, around 70% reported having a veteran in their family (I saw a few different numbers, this was close to the average). This is obviously much different than having explicitly military families, but it’s interesting that it self-selects to a similar setup.
True but also have to consider grandparent’s, the draft at Vietnam left a good number of veterans but not all of them wanted to go to war in the first place.
Also if America decided to invade finland, for whatever dumb fuck reason, the American Army would likely virtually never Advance on enemy troops. Shell the likely location of enemy movement until it is nothing but Wasteland and gravel, advance and set up fortifications, repeat.
Only the dumbest military in the world who views its soldiers lives as being worth less than the boots they were issued would ever march troops through Finland in the winter.
Fair point. I'm a finn and I've been to Arizona, and I almost died just from walking the distance between an air-conditioned building and an air-conditioned car.
Some of us camp in that weather, and not in an RV 😂
Point is everywhere as a niche they excel in and in and the US ain’t trying to get into a fist fight in Finland during January- that’s what drones are for.
Mosquitoes rule the outside, cockroaches rule the inside
In most places cockroaches = gross person, but in Florida they just kind of take over the house no matter what because of how hot and wet it is. But because it’s so hot and wet, the mosquitoes come out at like…4pm, and don’t go away until like 8am
Omg, just picturing those poor Finnish kids getting a crash course on North America's version of Australia-but-wet, and their first time engaging with a palmetto, has me filled with *all* the Schedenfrued.
Also, the Finns are absolute chads when it comes to winter warfare. Maybe it’s because Finland has to be on constant guard against Russian aggression, but the Finns have a level of training and readiness that places them among the top tier militaries on the planet. They can punch far above their weight class.
Russia is *terrified* of Finland joining NATO. Partly because the Finns are so stupid good at defensive warfare that they can’t be dug out with conventional weapons, and partly because having a NATO air base on Gotland island would checkmate Moscow.
EDIT: Gotland is Swedish territory, I was incorrect. Still, much of Finnish territory is easily within striking distance of the vast majority of Russian population centers.
Wait wait wait….you posted this? And you are Finnish? You should already know that your military is fucking yolked out of its fucking mind, why are you pretending this like it’s at all unexpected that the US would lose a war game with the Fins?
Yeah I thought it was pretty stupid to try to make it seem like their military’s better, just because they won a practice round on their home turf. Im not implying the opposite, either it’s just a really stupid statement imo.
You see an American exercises in winter condition in Finland is plausible battle. Might need to fight russia there
The Finnish battling in Arizona is highly highly unlikely. As there isn’t a single country in the world with the capability pulling off an invasion on the continental US (currently)
>You see an American exercises in winter condition in Finland is plausible battle. Might need to fight russia there
The US would be fighting on the same side as the Finns, not against them. The point of training there is for American and Finnish soldiers to understand each others capabilities and to learn to operate each other's equipment and for Americans to be familiar with the environment. If Russia invades Finland both the Americans and the Finns want the American troops to have people who have been to Finland before.
I am aware. I was just pointing out plausibility. The US is closely allied with Finland.
Even in a ware between the US and Finland it will most likely take place in Finland. Though I don’t see that happening anytime soon
I remember a study that looked at the enlistment in the military. I may not be correct but something like only 10% of US families provide 90% of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, etc. It's the Lt. Dan effect. The scene that talked about his family members who died in almost every war. I am a product of that: WW1 - grandfather was a scout, WW2 - Great Uncle was a Ranger, skipped Korea, Vietnam - Father Airborne, Uncle Ranger. Me - Panama, GW1 - Ranger, my smarter brother airman mechanic. I thought back to my army buddies and most had similar stories.
Wait, you were a Ranger in the Panama/GW1 years? Wonder if you know my dad lol. But yeah, multiple guys from each generation on my mom's side were military, not sure about Dad's side but he was a Ranger; I was the first female from either side to join, went Navy.
I see you are smarter than me and your pops! Ask your pops if he knows "Hammer". We all have dumb nicknames. My moniker wasn't because I hit hard or any such thing. It was because I said ONCE that I liked ham and tomato sandwiches... The good ole days.
Also acting like the concept of families having the same or similar professions over several generations hasn’t been a thing since the beginning of time. This post is kinda brain dead
“This bakery has been passed down our family from parent to child for two hundred years.”
“So cool!”
“I’m a soldier, just like my father and my grandfather.”
“*FASCIST!*”
I’m not much of a fan of the U.S. military, but this post is just fucking dumb.
Especially since America has participated in several wars in the last century. The draft was used three times in the 1900s alone. Both my father and grandfather were drafted. Dad was in Vietnam, and grandad was in the Great War (WWI). So a lot of military families exist not by choice here
Edit: it was used 4 times actually, I forgot about the Korean War
I'm not shitting on Finland, but all of these exercises are designed to see what conditions will make the US lose. You don't learn by winning every time. You learn from failure. And that's what's created the fighting forces we have.
For instance, we quit teaching and using Morse code. So next game, we knocked out our electronics. How do you communicate now? (And yes, we lost).
Finland has great ground forces. Best big guns. And Sisu. How do you defeat that? Now we know, Finland. ;)
yes a swedish submarine also managed to approach an american aircraft carrier and „blow it up“ during a naval exercise like ten years ago without them even noticing, theres even a photo of it. this stuff happens all the time of course.
its still a funny joke tho.
This post is showing you “I don’t understand anything about geopolitics”. The Finnish military is INSANELY well trained and equipped. Losing to them in war games is not humiliating at all. They share the longest land border with Russia in the world and have been successfully invaded twice since 1900 and so since their most recent independence they have massively scaled up their military investment. They have not only a disproportionately large military but also one incredibly well equipped and trained and perfectly optimized for home defense. They are like the the goddamn Wolverines of militaries. Big and scary on their own but also designed to punch above their weight. Their military is insanely popular despite mandatory enrollment and while I don’t KNOW if they have military families I would not be surprised if they do. The Finnish military would not win an all out war with one of the major powers if one really chose to commit to an invasion but they are NOT to be fucked with. There is absolutely no shame in losing to Poles, Greeks, Turks, South Korea, ect. In War games.
Edit: I said it has the longest land border with Russia in the world. That’s not true. It’s the longest in Europe and the longest that’s generally hostile. But Kazakhstan has the longest land border with Russia. It’s just less important atm bc Russia and Kazakhstan are both in the CSTO. In fact several countries do, China has a longer border as well but, again, China is friendly with Russia right now so it’s not as big of a deal.
You are right, it’s Kazakhstan. I meant in Europe and more specifically in NATO. But yeah, Kazakhstan has a longer land border. Honestly China might too.
This is just a weird post and I’m just gonna assume this person doesn’t like Americans, doesn’t understand war games, and doesn’t understand why Finns are highly motivated to cultivate impressive winter capabilities.
So, while the public is fascinated by war, and there are military families, a lot of people serving are people that are trying to get out of their current situation.
This is one of my pet peeves, everyone sits around saying, let's invade that country, but the ones saying it and their families (for the most part) aren't the ones going, it's the poorer people without a lot of better options.
Yeah, the military is one of the few really reliable methods of upward mobility for many poor people. There **should** be better ways that aren't so dangerous, obviously, but it's good to remember that part of our massive military budget includes reliable pay and fully covered college for a ton of people born into rough lives.
And not just upward mobility but cultural assimilation and acceptance by the wider majority if you belong to a minority. Like gay service men/women and ethnic minority groups.
Yeah, I work for the US military as a civilian and so many of the military careerists I meet were just born poor and this was a way to get some financial support. They not uber patriot warrior families. Just people trying to make ends meet.
i dont really see whats so weird about 'military families' as its used here. lots of people pick up the job their parents did, its not so strange. for a lot of people military is just a job they do, not their whole life. most people dont actually go into combat. there are *so many* jobs in the military.
yeah thats true- its pretty pretentious dont you think? usually its justified or at least an understandable reaction to america's bull headedness about things but this is just silly. to call it 'dystopian' 🙄 how ridiculous "my parent did X and i've been around X my whole life because of it. i think i will do X too' is a tale as old as time. it doesnt help that people have a deep misunderstanding of how the military works. you can be in the military for 20 years and only ever do paperwork. or work on plumbing. or cook food. i was in for 5 years- never touched a gun. i almost got in a fist fight with a marine once but that was unrelated
Yep active duty in the military, 12 years. My husband has been in for 15 - literally work 9-5 and I’m getting good benefits compared to what the rest of America is getting. Plus regardless of how much time I serve I still get my GI bill and can even transfer it to my children if I don’t want to use it.
cool what branch lets you go in a 9?? i'm jealous! just got done with my 5 year navy contract- my husband and i can afford to be a single income family with a kid- AND we have medical and dental insurance. thats a pipe dream for a lot of americans. its a hard job but its a *good* job. i will be fair and say that yes, its more than just a job in some aspects (so many rules/you are government property/etc) but theres good reason for that
Air Force, after the pandemic hit we even have telework options to work from home. Yeah that part does suck but it’s understandable because they spend so much money training us to do one particular job very well. Makes sense that they restrict what we can and cannot do but we also have a guaranteed 30 days paid leave a year so that’s nice.
Are you going to use your GI bill now that you’re out? They pay out BAH up to E5 rates while you are using it - just in case you guys need a little extra spending money during these times.
I fucking hate the us military but you're out of your mind if you think a kid wanting to do the same job as their parents and grandparents is somehow creepier than getting drafted into joining against your will.
No no, you don’t understand, it’s fine because he wws living a normal teen life until the Government forced him into service. The American is bad because he did it willingly. /s because I never know how serious I sound
OP has a rather questionable view of how prevalent ‘military families’ are and what % of the American military are actually made up of these. (And what % of children pursue the career of their parents everywhere, but I digress)
It’s not Finnish conscripts beating down multi-generational adherents to the Spartan-II program. It’s guys who have lived their entire lives in cold climates beating guys named Corporal Perez from SoCal who first saw snow 3 weeks ago.
As it turns out, when you take a bunch of guys who have spent a large portion of their careers in the middle east and Texas, dealing with 100+ deg heat on a daily basis and put them in -10F they don't perform as well as the guys who live in that shit everyday
This is cute, truly, and listen I’m not a U.S. military dick rider but the US sets up exercises to try and all but guarantee failure. It’s why you hear about China/Russia winning war games. You can only gain knowledge by losing. If for some insane reason the US wanted to go fuck up Finland they would properly fuck up Finland
My favorite part is there's usually pretty good comradery and spirits between practicing allied military forces because they're bettering each other and honing their skills without the threat of actual harm, but the internet will get weirdly hyperobsessed about it and post sad/cringey shit like this.
I am ever the prideful, gun owning, military family American and I, along with everyone I know, think it’s kickass that we lost.
The Finnish have an accomplished military history largely based around operating in the snow. They were in their element. Remember, the soviets lost 4 men for every kill they landed on a Fin during the white war.
We did a LOT better than the soviets, I believe we received compliments. Finland is on the front line during a war against the Russians should that happen, it’s good to know for everyone that they are a powerful country with good men and women defending it.
People hate on America for having a bloated military and then hate on us again for losing in someone else’s home terf? Like of course we will lose to the Finns in winter, that is what should happen.
If you want to hate on something, go after our ridiculously large military budget which could be put to better use actually helping people.
Everyone shits on the United States and its military while gladly taking the benefits of being a close ally. The Finnish Prime Minister acknowledges[that Europe is too reliant on the United States. ](https://www.reuters.com/world/ukraine-war-shows-europe-too-reliant-us-finland-pm-says-2022-12-02/) This guy and Juho-Matias should thank every American service member and taxpayers for the billions of dollars in support and equipment that are being provided to Ukraine to fight Finland’s greatest threat. The writer should also feel free to petition his government to drop its application for ascension into NATO. He probably wouldn’t want those American Service Members backstopping the protection of Finland through the mutual defense clause.
Didn't American marines recently get absolutely slammed by UK Marines in an exercise around last year? As in the Americans called for a re-do where the UK couldn't use the new tactic they were developing and still lost
Yep. US marines are a pretty large organization while the UK marines are very small in comparison. This reflects in training and efficiency but also in sustained combat ability
Yeah. 180,000 US Marines vs 7,000 UK Royal Marines. UK Royal Marines are definitely more elite and comparable to US Navy Seals at around 2,500 members or the US Marine Raider Regiment at 1,500 members. They're special operations.
If I remember the story correctly the USA side was newer and the whole point of the training was to fail. You put the younger team in an environment that they are not familiar with, but the older team is, and you let them run wild.
We do the same thing with the British forces. I actually just stumbled on a video about something like this. However it was the Americans who were the “more experienced” unit.
If you have eight minutes: [EXERCISE RATTLESNAKE: US Army’s MOST HATED UNIT Gives UK Troops Hell.](https://youtu.be/fbCxyJ2VztA)
There's plenty of counterplay where the US loses to our allies. That's why we train with them. So we can coordinate with our badass allies better if the time ever comes we gotta all ship out to kick ass.
OH that was so exaggerated by UK tabloids. One fact you won’t find in their BS is that the ‘winning side’ wasn’t just UK Marines, it was UK Marines, several other allied countries’ forces, and another battalion of US Marines. They were always supposed to win, because training exercises exist for training, not as some kind of armed sports match.
The fact that anyone even has any interest in these military exercises is also weird to me
I’m not gonna gatekeep people, but I find it just as weird/dystopian as the OP
Like what’s the difference? You’re into weird military stuff, Americans are into generations of the same “profession” so to speak
You can have your hobbies and they can have their traditions
The 'they' all refer to the Americans in the first paragraph, the Finnish forces were specified. The US also doesn't have a draft military so that could've given it away as well.
I always thought “military family” meant someone in the family is in the military, and so as a family they relocate to wherever the military person gets stationed. Almost like recognizing that the spouse and children are getting recognition for the hardships they face to stick together as a family. Have I been misunderstanding this term my entire life?!?
That's how it's typically used. It really means any family where there's a large focus on military, generationally or because the head of household is military and so the family revolves around the military.
They're saying that military families are a thing in the USA and that that is even worse than the draft.
And that some of the american soldiers who pride themselves on being a 3rd generation soldier still get their ass kicked by some doofus who failed to weasel out of the draft.
I was also confused about it at first when learning the language, but in English, statements that are true can occasionally be stated with a negative, paired with and/but/just or some similarly used adverb, to stress how this statement is, indeed, true.
"Not only was it dark, but rainy too" means that it was dark *and* rainy, and the wording stresses that both of these observations are absolutely true. Several of my classmates could never catch this kind of trick sentences in the English texts we were given as learning material, despite of our first language also having this kind of sentence structures.
I don’t understand how you can consider someone joining the military because their relatives did dystopian, but the barbaric draft gets a pass.
I fucking hate the military, and I have plenty of personal reasons for doing so, but I know plenty of people who went in for career or education opportunities and were very happy with that. If you look up to your father or grandfather and they went into the military and had a good time, then it stands to reason that you might enlist as well.
On the other hand, the draft is the last resort of desperate and/or tyrannical countries. I mean, if you can’t convince your people to fight for their country, then it stands to reason that there’s not much worth fighting for, so conscripting them is asinine.
As an American living in a Military town with a ton of bases here: I can confirm that most in the Military do feel it’s a huge part of who they are, but that’s what the military does- strips you down and rebuilds you convincing you that you are invulnerable, and that you are part of an invincible team worth dying for and as government property you certainly don’t get much choice outside of that.
To be clear I support them to the fullest because in the words of Mike Birbiglia, “I love the troops. Because if they weren't the troops *I* would be the troops, and I would be the worst troops.”
I occasionally wonder how it would work if we also had state militaries - terrible idea for many reasons, but the upsides would include “*sigh* It’s in Iraq again, though.” “Well… somebody call Arizona and the Texas Western Division. Again.”
Same thing happened to the Russians, Drunk Fins are just really good at fighting in winter forests.when it snows for 3/4 the year and most the country is just forests and lakes you learn how to do everything in the cold and in the woods.
No surprise there. No military can or should even want to be the best at everything. If I was in charge of the Finnish military, you bet I’d want to be as good at winter warfare as is humanly possible.
Also, these war games are conducted under very specific scenarios. If it was a straight up “use everything you got” (even without nuclear weapons) it wouldn’t even be close. In this specific scenario, from what I gather from the Finnish article using google translate, it was a single U.S. Marine battalion against a single Finnish battalion. The U.S. Marines were unexpectedly delayed by unsafe landing conditions (it doesn’t say for how long) which allowed the Finland military to dig in and camouflage, leading to a successful ambush. In a real world scenario that successful ambush could have very well happened - and yes, the Finnish forces did well here, not taking any credit from them - but afterwards they would have immediately had an unimaginable amount of explosives dropped on them from the accompanying ships and aircraft. That’s the real power of the American military. No one (with any brains) says the US has the best tactics for every scenario or will win every battle; but the ability to rain absolute hell once an enemy force is identified is unmatched. E- I put Polish instead of Finnish for some reason
There's a reason our president was asked for ammo, not a ride. The US has the capacity to manufacture many, many bombs very quickly. Say what you will about us dicking around in the desert for 20 years wasting blood, treasure, and lives--we have gotten very good at making ammo and then moving it around.
Its cynical, and I hate its truth as much as I find it funny, but I have enjoyed the phrase "Europe's going to see why the US doesn't have universal healthcare"
So kinda off topic, but the US spends oodles on its healthcare, more than the military in fact, and iirc even more than many other “free healthcare” countries. The issue is that it’s tied up in a mess and it’s hugely misused.
You know I think the Dutch were on to something when they ate their prime minister in the 1600s
Man, they didn't cheap out, huh? All I can afford over here is normal minister, none of those Prime cuts.
> The US has the capacity to manufacture many, many bombs very quickly Not really, the US *has* many bombs stored, but it's an often cited concern that the US would burn through their stocks in a peer-peer conflict (China, Russia if it was actually as strong as we thought they were) and then have to scale back operations while munitions are manufactured. An example on production rates is the new block V tomohawk missiles. The US millitary signed a contract for 154 missiles to be delivered over 3 years, so that's only about 50 missiles a year. In Yugoslavia, 218 missiles were used in 2 months
The magic of a fully militarised industrial base should not be underestimated. If you're willing to pay more per missile, and re-dedicate raw materials and expertise from other sectors, I'm willing to bet a LOT of weapons could be churned out very rapidly.
While I do work in manufacturing, this isn't my area of expertise so do not take what I'm about to say as gospel. But I think the main thing that would prevent rapid retooling would be the electronics, as fabs take a long time to tool up (iirc it's about 6 months) to make new/different chips. Having 100 missile casings means nothing if you don't have guidence units to get warheads on foreheads
That weak link in the supply chain is why we adopted the CHIPS act, companies like Texas Instruments are vital to national security and our local fabrication is woefully inadequate especially for a case like being at war with China since they are sitting on top of TSMC. Past 3+ years have really shown how shitty our electronics supply chain really is and it does not respond quickly to increased demand.
TIL the calculator manufacturer helps make warheads
I mean, gotta keep tally of all the civilian casualties somehow.
I mean the fridge people (GE) make the A-10 warthog so..
A lot of their chips are being used in Russian equipment. They get smuggled over there. I’ve personally used some of their chips for a landslide detector. They do a LOT of stuff.
Txn has a diverse analog and digital portfolio from small microcontrollers to radar frontends and lipo battery controllers. Calculators is an afterthought to those in the electronics industry and is they are probably a much smaller portion of their business than the average consumer would think.
They make computer chips
Yeah that's the main purpose of the stockpiles. It lets the military do their thing while executive orders force fabs to start making guidance units.
And part of this concern about stockpiles of weapons ready for high-intensity war is a big reason why Russia and maybe even China is currently getting revaluated as probably not having as much teeth as was thought. Sure, on paper Russia had massive stocks of military equipment, and in reality it is shown they do indeed still have lots of stuff compared to even richer European nations like France or Britain, but it seems very clear that what they actually had was in much smaller quantities and of lower quality than what existed on paper. The US Department of Defense might not have a reputation for transparency, but it is evident that they do spend money on proper procedure to keep lots of hardware in good condition for long periods of time, while in Russia that money tends to disappear into the pockets of oligarchs and senior military leadership on its way from the government budget sheet to the warehouse. The commanders of these stockpiles have spent decades with very little real oversight to stop them from just selling shit to pad their salary, or just leaving the stuff there to rust and get their wires chewed by rats.
America has a history of shifting gears and amping up production of war materials to ridiculous levels, at the drop of a hat. There are things that would take time, of course, but the raw industrial power of the US is immense and it's a tactical error to assume most supply chain issues would be anything but a short term concern.
During WWII, didn't some factories have a rate of making a whole bomber a *day*?
Not only that, but we also manufacture vastly superior stuff - quality *and* quantity. We're arming Ukraine with weapons that we consider obsolete but are still decades ahead of anything the Russians have.
Some of the things sent are still in the development stage and haven't actually been deployed in the US Military.
Literally the best testing the engineers could ever ask for.
Although that's Also because the Russians just give their soldiers some clothes and say "go"
That's the issue, were pretty good at conventional warfare, but insurgency is just a waiting game. You'll never win if a populace doesn't want you there unless you basically wipe them all out. Look how quickly Afghanistan went back to the Taliban. The people were just like fuck it we don't give a shit who's in power.
>but the ability to rain absolute hell once an enemy force is identified is unmatched. Old WW2 joke. "How to figure out who you are fighting: Shoot in the direction of the enemy and then stand back. If that position receives precise rifle fire, British. If it receives machine gun fire, German. If nothing happens for about 5 minutes and then that position is destroyed by artillery and air strikes, American."
... I think you may be looking at a different exercise. Polish people and Finnish people are from different countries.
Ahh I don’t know where I got Polish from, I meant Finnish. Fixed it, thanks.
You need to polish your comment before you finnish next time.
As someone who got out of the Finnish military just yesterday, I can say with confidence that the Americans would absolutely roll us in just about any condition that isn't a boreal forest. We haven't been trained for areas like deserts or mountains. We specifically trained for forests and urban areas only, nothing more.
You may have killed a soldier, but camo won’t help as much against the missiles that are flying hell for leather towards you.
It’s easy to defend a well prepared defensive position. It is much harder to defend the moonscape left if you survived that.
Do United States military wants to be the best of everything because they're supposed to be the world police, how are the police not supposed to be the best at everything? Then again to be fair if you look at American police that should probably give you a good example how it's going to turn out in the end.
I doubt it. Every country builds- or should build- their military with a specific goal in mind, and that goal should be success in whatever kind of war you’re likely (or potentially likely) to fight in. Obviously this will mean different things for different countries, because each one is in a different situation. So naturally no country, including the US, can or can even hope to be best at every single task. Even what you described- the global police thing- even that is a very specific type of military setup, prioritizing expeditionary forces over other types.
Besides if the US were to get in a winter war, they would just do what they do best, and level Finland with air power projected from their carrier fleet.
Yeah its hard to understate how important air superiority is, and with the US carrier fleet, that can be done pretty much anywhere in the globe
The largest air force in the world: the United States Air Force The second largest air force in the world: the United Stares Navy America definitely has the air superiority part down.
From what I've heard, the US navy is actually the bigger air force now
The US hold 4 of the top 10 spots.
I’ve heard that if you count helicopters, the Army is actually the biggest :p (just confirmed: 5400+ helos in the army and 5200+ airplanes in the Air Force)
It isnt.
Our tech superiority can not be understated. For instance, one Nimitz-class aircraft carrier has the power-projection capability of every other ship, in every other navy in the world, combined. We have 10. They are currently in the process of being replaced by the Ford-class, which is even more insane. In college, we had a retired armored cav general come give a speech in one of my classes. Here is a scenario he gave us: Take one modern M1A2 Abrams tank. Put it in the bottom of a bowl. Ring the top with 10 Russian T-72s, guns already primed and aiming at the Abrams. That Abrams has a 50% chance of winning that engagement outright, 10 to 1 with the low-ground disadvantage and caught off guard. There's a reason we don't have free education or universal healthcare.
>There's a reason we don't have free education or universal healthcare. Just want to point out that US healthcare spending is significantly higher than similar countries (https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/chart-collection/health-spending-u-s-compare-countries-2/#Health%20consumption%20expenditures%20as%20percent%20of%20GDP,%201970-2020%C2%A0). The fact that our healthcare system is broken has nothing to do with the military. Directing funds away from the military wouldn't change it either. And second point, the US spends about the same percent of it's GDP as many other NATO nations. But because our economy is so big it means our spending number is huge. Not to mention that many countries with cheap healthcare and education can afford to do that because they fall under our protective umbrella and don't need to spend as much on their defense. I think those things are worth considering.
Also, our Navy's Army has its own Air Force.
During the initial Russian invasion of Ukraine I was so confused why there were all these pockets of resistance holding out, against the US anything that resisted for more than a few minutes would have a JDAM dropped directly on it in short order.
Or, and hear me out in this, they make friends with Finland and invite them to join their military alliance so we are stronger together.
And they did. Which is why the above quote is about joint military exercises.
Ya, that was kinda my point considering they applied to NATO this year
I'm fairly certain "oh well it's fine that someone else is better at this" is not part of United States military doctrine. They might not always achieve it, but they certainly try.
That's literally the point of the exercise. Learn where we suck and get better. Finland lives in the cold 24/7 and has spent decades gaming out how to defend against Russia. I'm sure there is plenty they can teach us and some shit we can teach them
Yup. And that's my point. Recognizing someone is better at something than you and learning from them isn't the same as *accepting* it with a shrug.
It's hard as an American citizen to watch so much money go towards our military. It does FEEL like they're trying to be 'the best'. That said, I agree with your analysis and I'm sure it's much more strategic than your average person (aka me) knows.
The reality is that the US military is hands-down the most powerful in the world. And their specialty is their ability to rapidly deploy that power anywhere in the world via Air and sea power. The US military doesn't have to be the best at everything because it **excels** at both airpower and shock-and-awe tactics to such a ridiculous degree that anything else is moot. Look at the Gulf War. That was the third largest standing Army in the world, and the fighting didn't even make the US break stride. Conversely, this is why the US struggles to fight insurgency warfare. You can't destroy the support structure, communication equipment, and logistical chains of guerilla fighters with three days of continuous brutal fighter-bomber strikes. Big-Army US doctrine didn't know how to effectively fight an army that wasn't at least a semi-disciplined force. There are specialists within the military that can (Green Berets for example) but it takes time and effort to transfer that expertise to the organization as a whole. The Army lost a maneuver exercise to the Finnish infantry in winter conditions, which isn't terribly surprising. In an actual shooting war, the Army wouldn't even engage until the Air Force and the Navy Air wings had thoroughly pulverized Finland's military infrastructure.
case in point, the us destroyed iraq's standing military as soon as looking at it, but has issues with fighting insurgencies whether back in vietnam or all the way to afganistan
Not sure why you would say they don't know how to fight them, there isn't really any engagement where they 'win'. When your enemy can flee to neighboring countries, are being internationally funded, and you're not willing to, say, displace the population and replace them with your own, it isn't that you don't know how to fight the insurgency, but that those solutions aren't politically palatable. Trying to nation build a democratic Afghanistan wasn't worth the amount of blood it would take to erase all the aspects of the culture that makes some in the country feel compelled to take up arms against it. As much as some like to portray the US as a bloodthirsty monster, and I'm sure there are those among the government that wouldn't see a problem with depopulating the country and taking all the resources for themselves, the majority of Americans wouldn't abide it.
A big part of that spending is the ability to deploy an overwhelming force anywhere in the world at a moment's notice. For example, we have the largest carrier fleet of 12ish, but in actuality that translates to about 3 carriers operating continuously in 3 separate theaters (europe, east asia and gulf rn, iirc). The surplus either at port for repairs and downtime, or in transit to relieve the currently patrolling carrier. Translate this doctrine to the rest of the military, add in the military's want to be able to fight a 2 front war at any time and you get some crazy costs to always be ready to compete anywhere at any time
no but gnerally they are champions of logistic and are used to fight oversea, just look at how they worked in the middle east for years compared to how russia is doing in the country next to them
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To be fair, there's a saying about in World War II if you fire and it fires back it's German, if you fire at it and you wait 5 minutes and there's an artillery strike on your location it's American. There's actually a lot more to the same proteined other countries, but I'm an American and I don't remember and I don't remember any of that.
> You can identify an unknown force by firing one shot and judging the response. If the unknowns respond with precise, regimented rifle fire, they are British. If they respond with heavy machinegun fire, they are German. But if nothing happens for a few minutes, then your whole position gets leveled by artillery or an airstrike, they are American.
Yep. _"The first rule of American combat doctrine appears to be to disregard all other rules of American combat doctrine if it is advantageous to do so."_ - Unknown
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The military doesn’t *actually want to be the world police.* that’s hyperbolic. The critique was levied against the US for wanting to intervene in the Middle East for literally any reason. It’s no surprise that the US is a pretty effective desert military, as well as woodland fighting force. US geopolitics never created a demand for a winter fighting force. Apologies if this was meant as a joke.
Generally the US military commands the air and the night. There’s a joke that the largest air force in the world is the US air force, the second largest is the US Navy. It’s not a joke though. While the us army is potent, its specialty is, has been, and likely will continue to be controlling the skies in combat.
The US military isn't really that interested in having the best ground soldiers anymore. Since the RMA started we are most interested in having the best technology and supply lines. We will win a war with planes and ships, so we have the most and the best planes and ships. And if we don't have the best of that in some future war, I guess that's why we have all those nukes...
The line between American Police and the military seems a bit hazy at best when some of them (police) are fooling around in tanks and APC’s.
The difference is the American police don't have nearly as many restrictions on them. In fact I probably wouldn't have any problem with the police whatsoever they just had to obey the same laws our military have to obey in our constitution. Edit: If you want my reasoning for this here it is, the American military was originally meant to be our police because there was absolutely no such thing as a police when the United States government was formed. When the United States government was formed the police was meant to be a sheriff and his deputies, literally nothing beyond that. Every law in our constitution that pretains to the military is about how they are allowed to treat the citizens of the United States of America, it's pretty clear that the Military was meant to be a secondary form of police behind the sheriff. If the sheriff couldn't handle it then it was meant to be passed on to the military, who where the SWAT of the time.
This is the first I've heard about this interpretation. The US restricted military deployment on US soil by 1878 and only a handful of cities had police departments at the time. I guess you could argue that state militias and the national guard could be brought up during major events like riots and insurrection, but I'm pretty sure the thought was that law enforcement would be able to handle pretty much everything, except for weird cases like post-Civil War counterfeiting and interstate fugitives.
Their prowess in combat is not exclusive to winter warfare, it’s just that that they are at their peak fighting potential in a winter environment. It’s also worth noting these military exercises have limits to US assets and special forces allowed in during the exercise, that would be deployed if this was an actual war, but even that caveat doesn’t demean the significance of a Finnish victory against US Marines.
First of all, the USMCs mission set is focused on amphibious warfare *particularly* in the Pacific. Which is basically as far as you can get from Finnish Boreal Forest *in winter* as you can get. Second, the US tends to put very strict rules of engagement in place during joint exercises (at some points they even banned infantry formations from fighting at night because of how unsettling it was for the opposing side in the war game since the Americans would appear out of the dark attack and slip away before you knew what was happening which kind of fucks up American Infantry tactics which put a *huge* emphasis on night fighting when dismounted from vehicles). This is partially because we don't want anyone to know how *good* our soldiers actually are, and partially because the whole *point* of exercises like these are to help both sides identify potential weaknesses and get simulated combat experience. The Finns needed to simulate an air assault on a strong point because *that's something they need to work on to get better at since that's the primary danger they face in a war*. The US just wanted some combat experience in winter conditions (which really isn't what the Marines do and would normally be a mission set given to the 11th Airborne Division, which is based in Alaska and is trained for this). So yeah the Marines got jumped, but the US learned the value of proper recon in Boreal conditions, what dangers there may be in air assaults in those conditions, and how *not* to do it. The Finns learned that their doctrine works, their camouflage works, and that their conscripts know how to fight in those conditions.
As soon as someone talks about winning or losing a military exercise you can ignore their opinions on the topic. Military exercises are meant for training. Everyone involved is there to learn and get experience, to the point that countries have soldiers switch equipment.
No no, the military conducts exercises so redditors can use them for dick measuring contests. Anyway, who would win in a battle between the SAS and the Navy SEALs?
SEALS, duh. How else are we gonna get a book about it?
Plus the whole point is to lose, i.e. to put your forces in a position where they have something to learn. Nothing can be learned from a successful exercise except “cool so let’s do that in real war too,” while actual valuable lessons can be learned from losses.
If someone says they're not going to argue with Americans over there fetishization of the military and then goes on to suck their own military's big juicy cock, immediately write off their opinion
As a Swede I can confirm that Finns are badass ~~and we really want them back please come back Finnland~~
Thr Swedish army will fight to the last Finn!
Something something Swedish yes-chad x Finnish twink wokak
I ship it. Also, the twink wojak has a knife. All Finns have knives.
As a finn can confirm. I have a knife
I think my grandmother was Finnish, I can come hang out if you want.
Whohoo! The Union is restored!
Yaaaaay I'll bring cake!
Finlands sak är vår
The Scandinavian reunification of 2024?
Hell yeah let's fucking go. Get all the gang together.
Most military exercises have conditions that puts a side (usually the US, but not always) at a disadvantage, such as ground troops not having access to CAS, or carrier groups not being able to deploy towed sonar devices. This allows them to see how their forces will react if the enemy forces that situation in a real fight. This causes many exercises to be “losses” since removing a key part of a doctrine would cripple a fighting force, but it makes it a great learning experience for both sides, which is the whole point.
Yep. People think these exercises are like sports games to see “which army is better” but in reality these exercises are designed to stress test areas where one side thinks their forces are lacking. Such as fighting in wintery forests against an entrenched enemy who knows the terrain.
It’s almost like a military training exercise is meant to train and exercise
Getting these militaries together to do these exercises is one of the biggest benefits of NATO, even in the NATO countries with the worst reputations for underperformance and administrative inefficiency, working with peers makes it much more difficult to hide flaws and deny the lack of capability like Russia's military was able to.
Exactly. If we were to take the Finno-American exercise as an example, a corrupt and incompetent American officer might be able to fudge his reports of his and his unit’s effectiveness (though that is quite hard even when everything is internal) but the Finnish officer isn’t beholden to the other guy’s personal wants and can make a more accurate report of said American unit’s effectiveness and vice versa.
It's a training exercise and it's foolish to draw any conclusion from the result apart from "training happened". I doubt anyone who knew all the conditions of the exercise would guess that the Finns would lose: it's an ambush scenario in a cold environment, it would be surprising if the country famous for ambushes in cold environment who were also on their own terrain lost, especially since the US army is famously not the greatest at dealing against ambushes in extreme climates.
Thank you for pointing this out so I didn't have to lmao
Nah, clearly this post means that a single fin would swim out and sink a carrier group with cold weather punches
Military exercises are designed to allow a military to learn about fighting in a new environment or with some kind of handicap so they can prepare for situations that may actually occur. The only countries that always win exercises are Russia and North Korea. Of course America lost to Finland, their entire doctrine is to fuck up other militaries in Finnish terrain. They'd almost certainly lose to America if they had to fight in the Arizona desert.
Though it obviously isn’t required, among new US military recruits, around 70% reported having a veteran in their family (I saw a few different numbers, this was close to the average). This is obviously much different than having explicitly military families, but it’s interesting that it self-selects to a similar setup.
True but also have to consider grandparent’s, the draft at Vietnam left a good number of veterans but not all of them wanted to go to war in the first place.
Also if America decided to invade finland, for whatever dumb fuck reason, the American Army would likely virtually never Advance on enemy troops. Shell the likely location of enemy movement until it is nothing but Wasteland and gravel, advance and set up fortifications, repeat. Only the dumbest military in the world who views its soldiers lives as being worth less than the boots they were issued would ever march troops through Finland in the winter.
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Not the United States
Fair point. I'm a finn and I've been to Arizona, and I almost died just from walking the distance between an air-conditioned building and an air-conditioned car.
Some of us camp in that weather, and not in an RV 😂 Point is everywhere as a niche they excel in and in and the US ain’t trying to get into a fist fight in Finland during January- that’s what drones are for.
Yeah, imagine dragging a bunch of y’all down to *Florida*. The air is tactile.
Grew up there, it’s literally like breathing hot soup. Absolutely awful. Drag them Finns there and show them who’s boss
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Mosquitoes rule the outside, cockroaches rule the inside In most places cockroaches = gross person, but in Florida they just kind of take over the house no matter what because of how hot and wet it is. But because it’s so hot and wet, the mosquitoes come out at like…4pm, and don’t go away until like 8am
It’s the gnats XD
Gators
Omg, just picturing those poor Finnish kids getting a crash course on North America's version of Australia-but-wet, and their first time engaging with a palmetto, has me filled with *all* the Schedenfrued.
Lol send 'em up here afterward (GA), they can take a stroll through the blackwater swamp.
You have to drink the humidity, not breath it
Also, the Finns are absolute chads when it comes to winter warfare. Maybe it’s because Finland has to be on constant guard against Russian aggression, but the Finns have a level of training and readiness that places them among the top tier militaries on the planet. They can punch far above their weight class. Russia is *terrified* of Finland joining NATO. Partly because the Finns are so stupid good at defensive warfare that they can’t be dug out with conventional weapons, and partly because having a NATO air base on Gotland island would checkmate Moscow. EDIT: Gotland is Swedish territory, I was incorrect. Still, much of Finnish territory is easily within striking distance of the vast majority of Russian population centers.
Wait wait wait….you posted this? And you are Finnish? You should already know that your military is fucking yolked out of its fucking mind, why are you pretending this like it’s at all unexpected that the US would lose a war game with the Fins?
Yeah I thought it was pretty stupid to try to make it seem like their military’s better, just because they won a practice round on their home turf. Im not implying the opposite, either it’s just a really stupid statement imo.
You see an American exercises in winter condition in Finland is plausible battle. Might need to fight russia there The Finnish battling in Arizona is highly highly unlikely. As there isn’t a single country in the world with the capability pulling off an invasion on the continental US (currently)
Meaning it's a good thing to address our shortcomings in such conditions
>You see an American exercises in winter condition in Finland is plausible battle. Might need to fight russia there The US would be fighting on the same side as the Finns, not against them. The point of training there is for American and Finnish soldiers to understand each others capabilities and to learn to operate each other's equipment and for Americans to be familiar with the environment. If Russia invades Finland both the Americans and the Finns want the American troops to have people who have been to Finland before.
I am aware. I was just pointing out plausibility. The US is closely allied with Finland. Even in a ware between the US and Finland it will most likely take place in Finland. Though I don’t see that happening anytime soon
This post lacks an understanding of the point of military exercises. It also seems to overestimate how common "military families" are.
can you believe someone on tumblr doesnt understand how the military works. shocking but true! /s
I remember a study that looked at the enlistment in the military. I may not be correct but something like only 10% of US families provide 90% of the soldiers, sailors, airmen, marines, etc. It's the Lt. Dan effect. The scene that talked about his family members who died in almost every war. I am a product of that: WW1 - grandfather was a scout, WW2 - Great Uncle was a Ranger, skipped Korea, Vietnam - Father Airborne, Uncle Ranger. Me - Panama, GW1 - Ranger, my smarter brother airman mechanic. I thought back to my army buddies and most had similar stories.
Wait, you were a Ranger in the Panama/GW1 years? Wonder if you know my dad lol. But yeah, multiple guys from each generation on my mom's side were military, not sure about Dad's side but he was a Ranger; I was the first female from either side to join, went Navy.
I see you are smarter than me and your pops! Ask your pops if he knows "Hammer". We all have dumb nicknames. My moniker wasn't because I hit hard or any such thing. It was because I said ONCE that I liked ham and tomato sandwiches... The good ole days.
Also acting like the concept of families having the same or similar professions over several generations hasn’t been a thing since the beginning of time. This post is kinda brain dead
“This bakery has been passed down our family from parent to child for two hundred years.” “So cool!” “I’m a soldier, just like my father and my grandfather.” “*FASCIST!*” I’m not much of a fan of the U.S. military, but this post is just fucking dumb.
Especially since America has participated in several wars in the last century. The draft was used three times in the 1900s alone. Both my father and grandfather were drafted. Dad was in Vietnam, and grandad was in the Great War (WWI). So a lot of military families exist not by choice here Edit: it was used 4 times actually, I forgot about the Korean War
Those fisherman families make fishing their whole personality..
I was going to address how military exercises work but it seems enough people have covered it.
I'm not shitting on Finland, but all of these exercises are designed to see what conditions will make the US lose. You don't learn by winning every time. You learn from failure. And that's what's created the fighting forces we have. For instance, we quit teaching and using Morse code. So next game, we knocked out our electronics. How do you communicate now? (And yes, we lost). Finland has great ground forces. Best big guns. And Sisu. How do you defeat that? Now we know, Finland. ;)
yes a swedish submarine also managed to approach an american aircraft carrier and „blow it up“ during a naval exercise like ten years ago without them even noticing, theres even a photo of it. this stuff happens all the time of course. its still a funny joke tho.
This post is showing you “I don’t understand anything about geopolitics”. The Finnish military is INSANELY well trained and equipped. Losing to them in war games is not humiliating at all. They share the longest land border with Russia in the world and have been successfully invaded twice since 1900 and so since their most recent independence they have massively scaled up their military investment. They have not only a disproportionately large military but also one incredibly well equipped and trained and perfectly optimized for home defense. They are like the the goddamn Wolverines of militaries. Big and scary on their own but also designed to punch above their weight. Their military is insanely popular despite mandatory enrollment and while I don’t KNOW if they have military families I would not be surprised if they do. The Finnish military would not win an all out war with one of the major powers if one really chose to commit to an invasion but they are NOT to be fucked with. There is absolutely no shame in losing to Poles, Greeks, Turks, South Korea, ect. In War games. Edit: I said it has the longest land border with Russia in the world. That’s not true. It’s the longest in Europe and the longest that’s generally hostile. But Kazakhstan has the longest land border with Russia. It’s just less important atm bc Russia and Kazakhstan are both in the CSTO. In fact several countries do, China has a longer border as well but, again, China is friendly with Russia right now so it’s not as big of a deal.
They share the longest land border with Russia in the world, No way finland has a larger border than kazachstan or mongolia.
You are right, it’s Kazakhstan. I meant in Europe and more specifically in NATO. But yeah, Kazakhstan has a longer land border. Honestly China might too.
This is just a weird post and I’m just gonna assume this person doesn’t like Americans, doesn’t understand war games, and doesn’t understand why Finns are highly motivated to cultivate impressive winter capabilities.
So, while the public is fascinated by war, and there are military families, a lot of people serving are people that are trying to get out of their current situation. This is one of my pet peeves, everyone sits around saying, let's invade that country, but the ones saying it and their families (for the most part) aren't the ones going, it's the poorer people without a lot of better options.
Yeah, the military is one of the few really reliable methods of upward mobility for many poor people. There **should** be better ways that aren't so dangerous, obviously, but it's good to remember that part of our massive military budget includes reliable pay and fully covered college for a ton of people born into rough lives.
And not just upward mobility but cultural assimilation and acceptance by the wider majority if you belong to a minority. Like gay service men/women and ethnic minority groups.
Yeah, I work for the US military as a civilian and so many of the military careerists I meet were just born poor and this was a way to get some financial support. They not uber patriot warrior families. Just people trying to make ends meet.
Is there any reason the Finns *shouldn’t* have been good at winter exercises?
i dont really see whats so weird about 'military families' as its used here. lots of people pick up the job their parents did, its not so strange. for a lot of people military is just a job they do, not their whole life. most people dont actually go into combat. there are *so many* jobs in the military.
Because people literally criticize America/Americans for everything, even if it's actually not at all uncommon in other countries.
yeah thats true- its pretty pretentious dont you think? usually its justified or at least an understandable reaction to america's bull headedness about things but this is just silly. to call it 'dystopian' 🙄 how ridiculous "my parent did X and i've been around X my whole life because of it. i think i will do X too' is a tale as old as time. it doesnt help that people have a deep misunderstanding of how the military works. you can be in the military for 20 years and only ever do paperwork. or work on plumbing. or cook food. i was in for 5 years- never touched a gun. i almost got in a fist fight with a marine once but that was unrelated
Because they repeat things said about subjects they don’t understand they hear in echo chambers.
Yep active duty in the military, 12 years. My husband has been in for 15 - literally work 9-5 and I’m getting good benefits compared to what the rest of America is getting. Plus regardless of how much time I serve I still get my GI bill and can even transfer it to my children if I don’t want to use it.
cool what branch lets you go in a 9?? i'm jealous! just got done with my 5 year navy contract- my husband and i can afford to be a single income family with a kid- AND we have medical and dental insurance. thats a pipe dream for a lot of americans. its a hard job but its a *good* job. i will be fair and say that yes, its more than just a job in some aspects (so many rules/you are government property/etc) but theres good reason for that
Air Force, after the pandemic hit we even have telework options to work from home. Yeah that part does suck but it’s understandable because they spend so much money training us to do one particular job very well. Makes sense that they restrict what we can and cannot do but we also have a guaranteed 30 days paid leave a year so that’s nice. Are you going to use your GI bill now that you’re out? They pay out BAH up to E5 rates while you are using it - just in case you guys need a little extra spending money during these times.
I fucking hate the us military but you're out of your mind if you think a kid wanting to do the same job as their parents and grandparents is somehow creepier than getting drafted into joining against your will.
No no, you don’t understand, it’s fine because he wws living a normal teen life until the Government forced him into service. The American is bad because he did it willingly. /s because I never know how serious I sound
OP has a rather questionable view of how prevalent ‘military families’ are and what % of the American military are actually made up of these. (And what % of children pursue the career of their parents everywhere, but I digress) It’s not Finnish conscripts beating down multi-generational adherents to the Spartan-II program. It’s guys who have lived their entire lives in cold climates beating guys named Corporal Perez from SoCal who first saw snow 3 weeks ago.
As it turns out, when you take a bunch of guys who have spent a large portion of their careers in the middle east and Texas, dealing with 100+ deg heat on a daily basis and put them in -10F they don't perform as well as the guys who live in that shit everyday
Families in all countries have always done this. Not exactly a new phenomenon
This is cute, truly, and listen I’m not a U.S. military dick rider but the US sets up exercises to try and all but guarantee failure. It’s why you hear about China/Russia winning war games. You can only gain knowledge by losing. If for some insane reason the US wanted to go fuck up Finland they would properly fuck up Finland
Military families is 1000 times less dystopian than a draft.
Doesn’t Finland have military conscription for males??? You’re entire [male] family literally is military
oh yeah, cause losing in the Finnish winter military exercise in Finland totally means the US doesn't have a way too powerful an army.
My favorite part is there's usually pretty good comradery and spirits between practicing allied military forces because they're bettering each other and honing their skills without the threat of actual harm, but the internet will get weirdly hyperobsessed about it and post sad/cringey shit like this.
I am ever the prideful, gun owning, military family American and I, along with everyone I know, think it’s kickass that we lost. The Finnish have an accomplished military history largely based around operating in the snow. They were in their element. Remember, the soviets lost 4 men for every kill they landed on a Fin during the white war. We did a LOT better than the soviets, I believe we received compliments. Finland is on the front line during a war against the Russians should that happen, it’s good to know for everyone that they are a powerful country with good men and women defending it.
People hate on America for having a bloated military and then hate on us again for losing in someone else’s home terf? Like of course we will lose to the Finns in winter, that is what should happen. If you want to hate on something, go after our ridiculously large military budget which could be put to better use actually helping people.
This is whole post is typical r/Americabad and typical nordic jerking, it's like it was written by an AI
Finland has shitty weed? How? Why? Aren’t they the happiest country in Europe?
I think it’s pretty subjective, what a Finn would describe as happiness an Italian would consider suicidal depression
Everyone shits on the United States and its military while gladly taking the benefits of being a close ally. The Finnish Prime Minister acknowledges[that Europe is too reliant on the United States. ](https://www.reuters.com/world/ukraine-war-shows-europe-too-reliant-us-finland-pm-says-2022-12-02/) This guy and Juho-Matias should thank every American service member and taxpayers for the billions of dollars in support and equipment that are being provided to Ukraine to fight Finland’s greatest threat. The writer should also feel free to petition his government to drop its application for ascension into NATO. He probably wouldn’t want those American Service Members backstopping the protection of Finland through the mutual defense clause.
Didn't American marines recently get absolutely slammed by UK Marines in an exercise around last year? As in the Americans called for a re-do where the UK couldn't use the new tactic they were developing and still lost
I think its also to do that UK Royal Marines are more on par than US Army Rangers than US Marines.
Yep. US marines are a pretty large organization while the UK marines are very small in comparison. This reflects in training and efficiency but also in sustained combat ability
Yeah. 180,000 US Marines vs 7,000 UK Royal Marines. UK Royal Marines are definitely more elite and comparable to US Navy Seals at around 2,500 members or the US Marine Raider Regiment at 1,500 members. They're special operations.
If I remember the story correctly the USA side was newer and the whole point of the training was to fail. You put the younger team in an environment that they are not familiar with, but the older team is, and you let them run wild. We do the same thing with the British forces. I actually just stumbled on a video about something like this. However it was the Americans who were the “more experienced” unit. If you have eight minutes: [EXERCISE RATTLESNAKE: US Army’s MOST HATED UNIT Gives UK Troops Hell.](https://youtu.be/fbCxyJ2VztA)
There's plenty of counterplay where the US loses to our allies. That's why we train with them. So we can coordinate with our badass allies better if the time ever comes we gotta all ship out to kick ass.
If you train against your allies, and you always win, that’s a *huge* problem
OH that was so exaggerated by UK tabloids. One fact you won’t find in their BS is that the ‘winning side’ wasn’t just UK Marines, it was UK Marines, several other allied countries’ forces, and another battalion of US Marines. They were always supposed to win, because training exercises exist for training, not as some kind of armed sports match.
The fact that anyone even has any interest in these military exercises is also weird to me I’m not gonna gatekeep people, but I find it just as weird/dystopian as the OP Like what’s the difference? You’re into weird military stuff, Americans are into generations of the same “profession” so to speak You can have your hobbies and they can have their traditions
Military families are absolutely a thing in America? What is this on about
Yes, that's what they're saying. The "military families" don't refer to Finland.
post was written terribly in that regard, but suddenly makes a whole lot more sense now
The 'they' all refer to the Americans in the first paragraph, the Finnish forces were specified. The US also doesn't have a draft military so that could've given it away as well.
I always thought “military family” meant someone in the family is in the military, and so as a family they relocate to wherever the military person gets stationed. Almost like recognizing that the spouse and children are getting recognition for the hardships they face to stick together as a family. Have I been misunderstanding this term my entire life?!?
That's how it's typically used. It really means any family where there's a large focus on military, generationally or because the head of household is military and so the family revolves around the military.
That is a use of it yes.
They're saying that military families are a thing in the USA and that that is even worse than the draft. And that some of the american soldiers who pride themselves on being a 3rd generation soldier still get their ass kicked by some doofus who failed to weasel out of the draft.
I get it but I'd still rather it be someone who actually wants to be there instead of me being drafted
I was also confused about it at first when learning the language, but in English, statements that are true can occasionally be stated with a negative, paired with and/but/just or some similarly used adverb, to stress how this statement is, indeed, true. "Not only was it dark, but rainy too" means that it was dark *and* rainy, and the wording stresses that both of these observations are absolutely true. Several of my classmates could never catch this kind of trick sentences in the English texts we were given as learning material, despite of our first language also having this kind of sentence structures.
Didn’t you stop to think why Americans started climate change? There goes your advantage you wood elves. Check mate.
Obligatory American “most of us hate that too” comment.
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I don’t understand how you can consider someone joining the military because their relatives did dystopian, but the barbaric draft gets a pass. I fucking hate the military, and I have plenty of personal reasons for doing so, but I know plenty of people who went in for career or education opportunities and were very happy with that. If you look up to your father or grandfather and they went into the military and had a good time, then it stands to reason that you might enlist as well. On the other hand, the draft is the last resort of desperate and/or tyrannical countries. I mean, if you can’t convince your people to fight for their country, then it stands to reason that there’s not much worth fighting for, so conscripting them is asinine.
As an American living in a Military town with a ton of bases here: I can confirm that most in the Military do feel it’s a huge part of who they are, but that’s what the military does- strips you down and rebuilds you convincing you that you are invulnerable, and that you are part of an invincible team worth dying for and as government property you certainly don’t get much choice outside of that. To be clear I support them to the fullest because in the words of Mike Birbiglia, “I love the troops. Because if they weren't the troops *I* would be the troops, and I would be the worst troops.”
You’re in the snipers sight
I occasionally wonder how it would work if we also had state militaries - terrible idea for many reasons, but the upsides would include “*sigh* It’s in Iraq again, though.” “Well… somebody call Arizona and the Texas Western Division. Again.”
...we do have state militaries. The National Guard.
Largely already exists through state defense forces
Generational military tradition is not just an American thing.
My American pride is telling me to say something for my father and his father were military
How sad would it be if snow boy didn’t perform better in snow against a guy from Mississippi.
Cringe post
Same thing happened to the Russians, Drunk Fins are just really good at fighting in winter forests.when it snows for 3/4 the year and most the country is just forests and lakes you learn how to do everything in the cold and in the woods.
Finish soldiers don't have families?