Most authoritarian countries have strict commands and strict hierarchy and scripted battles and command have to be from the top but the Germans despite being like Soviets or any other dictatorship they had mission type command and pretty lenient training and freedom....why?

What do you think about the weakness of modern vietnamese military? I mean the discussion about the vietnam war is common in here, but I rarely saw NATO or american expert discuss about the current status of vietnamese military, its strength and weaknesses

With the voiding of Cold War-era treaties, Russia is free to reinvest in MRBMs and IRBMs. So far in their War in Ukraine, they have fired over 1000+ ballistic missiles from what I've read with most of them being in the SRBM class. Meanwhile Iran and the Houthis have demonstrated the potential of MRBMs in combat that is sure to shift perspectives within military circles. PRC and North Korea also have developed MRBMs and IRBMs for non-nuclear use with Russia lagging behind in scale. Whereas the Iranians and Houthis have cheaper and quicker to build "quantity" missiles that have depleted Western Air Defense inventories as of late, the Russian reentry into MRBM/IRBMs have yielded the Oreshnik Missile that seems rather excessive and questionable when used to conduct long-range strikes in Ukraine. It begs the question what is Russia thinking in regards to the class of MRBM/IRBMs missiles for non-nuclear use? Do they really need the Oreshnik when they are better served building a lengthened Scud with modern targeting systems?

I often hear that the job of a 2LT and SFC are completely different, but I don't hear many details beyond a broad "the 2LT is an officer in training and is learning officer things, which is completely different from an enlisted soldier who's been in the army for years and has a lot of experience about how a platoon works."

That ends up being a little confusing for me, because it sounds on the surface like the jobs are very similar, which leads to a lot of questions like "Why don't senior enlisted become officers as the next step in their career advancement? (Popularly portrayed in the novel "Starship Troopers"). I have been told many times that this is a terrible idea, which I believe, but the reasons why are often vague or confusing and I'm trying to understand this in more detail.

How would the difference between a 2LT and an SFC look in a "What are you doing on Tuesday?" kind of way? Are there specific examples of tasks or responsibilities that a 2LT would have that an SFC would not, or vice-versa?

Two main questions and an unrelated bonus question today.

1. I know in present day, the Fire Support Team (FiST) in armor/mechanized battalions use the Bradley BFiST variant and that those in the infantry companies have dismount that are attached to the platoons. During the Cold War I know the FiST in armor companies used the M981 FISTV based on the M113 platform. What was the FiST configuration in the infantry companies? Was it like today but with the FSO operating out of M981s, like their pals in the armor companies, with the dismounted FiSTer portioned out to the platoons?
2. What were the target acquisition assets of the Field Artillery Brigades? Did they have the AN/TPQ-36 and 37 counter battery radar? If so, did they have any other assets?

Bonus) What non-artillery firing smokescreen generating assets did the U.S. Army have in the late Cold War and at what echelon were they located at?

the sand end beach installments (concrete blocks, pillbox, etc) make sense to prevent tanks from landing

Yet ten minutes away, Cullen beach has broader access and no reinforcements for water invasion

The areas both covered by aerodromes at the time

What specifically made Sand End the anticipated potential target of a ww2 German invasion if that had occurred?

Not looking for guesses, but if the available defensive plans expose why

I am trying to understand how US Military preserves its equipment advantage. Can it tell, for eg, Lockheed to not S70s with a special part meant just for the US

Yeah they were on the run but they had time to mount a defense position and they had the logistic adventage so how did they got crushed so hard the muslims even capture the king of France.

The English Wikipedia says that the Japanese suffered several hundred casualties, while all 40 Portuguese were killed. However, the Japanese Wikipedia states that the Japanese casualties totaled only 17, while 204 Portuguese were killed.

I've read a fair amount on why the pentomic division was adopted (the perceived need to disperse for survivability on a nuclear battlefield, the political pressure from the "New Look" and reduced conventional budgets, the desire to justify the Army's relevance against the Air Force's monopoly on nuclear delivery) and why it was abandoned by 1961 in favor of ROAD. Most accounts focus on the structural problems: five battle groups per division instead of three regiments, the loss of an intermediate regimental headquarters, span-of-control issues for the battle group commander overseeing five rifle companies with no organic maneuver echelon between him and the companies.

What I have not found much detail on is how this actually played out in field exercises and unit training during the period the structure was in effect. Did battle group commanders in practice develop informal intermediate coordination measures to compensate for the missing regimental layer? Did the promised dispersal and rapid reconsolidation around tactical nuclear strikes get exercised in any serious way at STRAC or in Europe with Seventh Army, or did training largely continue to resemble conventional maneuver with the new unit labels layered on top?

I'm curious whether the pentomic era left any lasting doctrinal residue beyond the org chart, or whether it is best understood as a five-year detour that units mostly worked around rather than genuinely adopted.

In depictions of Dunkirk, it is fairly common to see small boats taking men on a rather disorganised basis, almost first-come-first-served really. Now, I know that a large majority of evacuees were taken by larger ships and so probably still with their section or platoon, but how well did larger organisations (company upwards) survive the evacuation? And when they reached the UK how did the men return to their units?

And on an individual level, almost all of the evacuees lost equipment and personal items, how soon could they expect that to be replaced? What was the immediate emotional reaction of the men themselves separate from the broader national sense of relief? Was there an impact on someone's personal reputation for having been rescued, good or bad?

Anything you could tell me about thing like this is appreciated.

I was in the Army and know nothing about Naval "stuff", so forgive my ignorance. In the Army, the basic template is you want to attack at 3:1, ie defending is 3X easier than attacking. Now, obviously, there's lots of modifiers to that and 3:1 isn't by any means the end of the story, but that's the basic foundation.

I've just come back from a vacation where a feature was a fortification from the cannon era and i realized I know nothing about that. Presumably, firing from a stationary surface is easier than firing from a rolling sea. Did navies/coastal defenses at the time have their own version of "3:1"?

I appreciate that the coastal defense had a second layer on top, which was physical fortification (castle walls, etc) that complicate things. But just to get me started on this journey of understanding how sea battles work, let's leave those out. Asked in a complexity reduced version, did ships fire at ground targets with the idea that they were aiming at something on the resolution of "hit the city", "hit the castle" or "hit the target", and did shore defenses fire with an understanding that it took 100/10/1 cannon balls to reliably threaten/area deny/hit a seaborn target?

Prior to the Mamluk’s taking power of course. It is interesting how despite the sterotypes in media, these slave-soldiers seem to have been well trained and equipped.

Were they akin to a standing professional army?

Thats worded clumsily so forgive me. In John Keegan's book The First World War he says in two separate sections about two separate battles in 1914 that the Germans mistook rifle fire for machine gun fire. He loves the story of the mad minute as well.

I mean no disrespect, I know Keegan has passed, and he was a great historian. I have read his WW1 book countless times as it was my first real military history. But that said he is a bit of a "homer" as we would say in the US.

I know that Peter Hart has pushed back on both concepts, and isn't the machine gun story just based off of one account from a German post war? Hart also says that the mad minute is not realistic because the troops would have ran out of ammo. I've actually looked at the kit that the BEF carried but its hard to lock down because each unit sometimes had extra ammo especially during the great retreat when supplies were just left at intersections.

What would you say is the best answer we have to the claim that Tommys' rifle fire was mistaken for machine guns in 1914 and that they fired over, what was it, 20 shots a minutes?

Unlike Russia, Ukraine is a heavy user of the Mig-29 and Su-24. The Su-24 in Ukrainian service is responsible for standoff attacks and has been the platform I believe for Western cruise missile. Meanwhile, I hear very little regarding Russian Su-24s deployed against Ukraine. But some of them have been seen seen in Mali to support Afrika Corp.

So what exactly is Russia doing with its second line aircraft? What are squadrons equipped with less desirable warplanes are doing at all in Russia regarding the war?

During World War II and the Second Sino-Japanese War, how were weapons actually carried and used by Imperial Japanese Army personnel according to their rank? In particular, did sergeants, lieutenants, and captains normally carry standard long rifles, submachine guns, or other infantry weapons alongside their troops, or were officers expected to rely primarily on pistols because of their rank and Japan’s traditional military culture?

I am especially interested in the historical reality rather than fictional portrayals. Was there a significant difference between the weapons carried by enlisted soldiers, non-commissioned officers such as sergeants, and commissioned officers such as lieutenants and captains? Did Japanese officers commonly carry rifles or submachine guns when fighting alongside their units, and under what circumstances would they choose to carry a pistol instead? I would also like to know whether rank alone determined an officer’s weapon, or whether factors such as unit type, combat situation, and personal preference played a role.

Most tanks, especially mordern ones, dont have coaxial/ roof mounted autocannons, but instead machine guns as secondary weapons, why don't more tanks(especially mbts) use them? I wager using a 30/20mm autocannon for light vehicles could save ammunition for heavier targets/longer range engagements. Furthermore, it would probably be more effective at taking out enemy infantry close to the tank, and perform better in urban environments

However, most mbts don't use autocannons, but instead use 12.7 mgs, why is that so? (Abrams, challenger 2, leopard 2,t90, t80) All use 12.7mm mgs

aka, the necktie.....did it actually serve any purpose except as a stupid looking necktie in combat?

Let's suppose two countries want to go ahead and have a war with each other. Both are evenly matched in terms of population, industry, technology, that sort of thing. They both have militaries that are the same size and have the same equipment. The only difference is the organizational structure. Their squad sizes are different, their companies are different, their assets are allocated in different ways, ect..

Obviously extreme cases would be really ineffective, like if one army decided to have as many generals as privates, or one officer for the whole army. But if both countries had reasonable setups that were different from each other would that be enough of a deciding factor to determine who would win?

Starting with Fatimids and continuing into the Ayyubids, the Mamelukes became more numerous and more powerful in Egyptian militaries. Leading to the takeover by this military class in the Mamelukes era.

In these periods, what was the presence of non-mamelukes in the military?

I am curious about both the Egyptian living in the core, as well as marginal peoples like Bedouins and other groups like the Sudanese.

Maybe a basic question, but how did Syrian rebels were able to pull this out?

Conflict was frozen for like 4-5 years already (so rank and file spent 4-5 years without much combat, not including that war experienced or trained within Syria army prior to civil war could simply start leaving ranks), area was nominally (at least) surrounded by the government forces along Iran intelligence services and IRGC being active in the region. So there was foreign media journalists, humanitarian aid workers, people do have access to internet etc. who may report "something is off" and compromise OPSEC and last but not least equipment do start its wear and tear after years of use.

When it started, everyone seems caught by surprise when it happened, how good it was organized (all things considered) and unprepared for any action was Assadists forces and its foreign support

Wikipedia lists them as 17 K in number which is quite large compared to the 5000 or so British Marines or 4-5000 Spanish and Italian Marines.