Greatest soldier of all time

[Thunderstruck]

Holy cow, the ignorance flies, West Point indeed.

My Dad was a US Marine.

I was a US Sailor.

I wanted to be a Marine but my Dad would not allow me, he said all they would teach me was how to kill.

Probably true but I'll put the Marines up against anybody else any day. After all the streets of Heaven are guarded by United States Marines. The Marine Corp is all about discipline. My Dad has been out for 35 years and still is a Marine. How many Waffen SS can say that?

Steve

[Al Carter]

The Roman Legions. A Legionary or a Centurian. I choose them.

Al Carter

[Erwin Rommel]

I think Waffen-SS was great.

I mean, they fought good in the war theatres..

Of course, I also think the other groups on the poll were great too.

But if anyone ask me to choose one, I still choose Waffen-SS.

[Logan Hartke]

Anyone who thinks the US MArines have no "mind training" are kidding themselves completely.The US marines are one of the most brainwashed groups of soldiers that history has ever seen.
Do not put down the Waffen SS!The premier divisions fought in battles that the MArines have never seen the like.Waffen SS men kept going when the Wehrmacht could no longer and they DID spearhead attacks!!!Ever heard of the Leibstandarte for example?I ask you read up on its battle history...Das Reich maybe?
The Heer Soldat was also far superior to the Marine.
Vikings lived in different times my friend,but you must not dismiss the fact that they were great warriors!!!

I doubt the Heer Soldat was superior. First of all, the Marine thinks he is the best and he's not going to let anyone else say that about him. He'd probably crush the Soldat's head in his hand. I'd like to see the two square off in a trench with only bayonets. In a scenario like that, I think only a Viking might be able to take the Marine. I have a father in the USAF, a grandfather who was in the Army, and a grandfather who was in the Seabees and the Navy (carrier). They say that though the other services are smarter (by entry exam, it goes USMC-lowest, US Army, USN, and USAF-smartest) the Marines would win a bar fight any day of the week. The Marines may not be able to perform trigonometry, but they can probably remember most of the tactics they learned to the point where they'd rival most other units (as far as tactics goes). That Heer soldier might only be able to carry that MG34 5-10 miles before getting tired. The Marines are trained to RUN that far with the M14, (not a light weapon) full canteen, and FULL pack (weighing about as much as the MG34 alone. My money is still on the Marine.

Respectfully,
Logan Hartke

[Raf]

It is the question what you mean by the best : the best trained, the braviest, the best equipt ? Secondly, I think comparing soldiers throughout history is very difficult because off change in armor, waepons en tactics.

[GoLiAtH]

I guess you like the movie SPR...
Yeah, the superior,well-trained US marines...

But I think the whole topic cant be treated objectively since most of the people will vote for their "home" soldiers

My Dad has been out for 35 years and still is a Marine. How many Waffen SS can say that?

-erm...the Waffen-SS doesnt exist anymore..so how can anyone say that??

My favourite is Waffen-SS

[Galahad]

For approximately 500 years the Byzantine Army held the borders of the Later Roman Empire mostly intact against all comers, until it lost the Battle of Manzikert, which caused the destruction of its population/recruiting base in Anatolia.
Not a shabby record at all.

[Bad Tolz]

Trench fighting hey?
Well,in Russia (Russian H2H/close quarter combat is the best)the Heer Soldat proved himself veryvery capable and surprised the Russians at times.The Waffen SS were even better than the Heer.An average Waffen SS trooper would crush a MArine in close quarter combat,as would a Heer Soldat.A Fallshirmjager man would make a MArine look stupid in this regard.

[Caldric]

Actually the Marines are very selective in recruitment, education standards are the highest among the branches.

Quote:
My Dad has been out for 35 years and still is a Marine. How many Waffen SS can say that?



-erm...the Waffen-SS doesnt exist anymore..so how can anyone say that??

He means the spirit of the Corp still remains in their mentality years after they seperate. Once a Marine always a Marine. That is one of their mottos.

[Anders Schmidt]

Romans.

[Tiwaz]

I guess you like the movie SPR...
Yeah, the superior,well-trained US marines...

But I think the whole topic cant be treated objectively since most of the people will vote for their "home" soldiers

Quite right. And as for those that say how US-marines are best... How many foreign soldiers you have seen or know?

For example Gurkhas are one damn mean group.

[don]

I got to say.....ROMANS
They kicked butt

don

[Ovidius]

To claim to have the Best Soldiers in history, a military force has to refer to all aspects, not only combat ability.

The Vikings were the most talented sailors of their times, and their knowledge of navigation did not become available for other people until the 15th century. They were also masterly skilled swordsmiths, and top level fencers. But they were disorganized, being more freelancers than regular military force.

The Mongols were the best organized and disciplined army of their time, advancing almost as fast as the 20th century mechanized armies, but their logistic system lacked almost totally, their economic basis being the pillaging. Not very smart. Almost the same for the Huns/primitive Magyars. :roll:

The Japanese Samurai were the best absolutely swordsmiths in history, and their fencing talent was legendary, but their rigid structure made them unable to evolve, to adapt themselves to modern weapons and tactics.

The Medieval Magyar cavalry archers, subject to the great admiration of Magyar members, disgraced themselves in their battles against the Turkish musket-infantry(Janissaries), showing the inability to adapt themselves to modern tactics, like the Samurai.

The Romans were the greatest military force of their time, both in warfare and peacetime, but they were too far back in time to be comparable to any modern military force.

The best ever soldiers of the pre-mechanized era must have been the Russian/Ukrainian Cossacks. Qvist's remark about them is as wicked as false. The "Comanches of the Steppes", as the Westerners had named them, were actually the best cavalrymen in history, learning to ride horses soon after they learnt walking, living in a structure united by kinship and military comradeship that accustomed them to military discipline since their birth, master horsemen and sword fighters, and also second only to the Samurai in swordmaking. They adapted themselves over the centuries to firearms(the death of European knighthood), becoming first-class marksmen. They lived through all kind of warfare, fought all kind of enemies, hold the flag high during the Russian military debacle of WWI, resisted to the entire Red Army during the 1919-1920 battles in the Don region. 8)

The best military force of the mechanized warfare must have been, on the other side, the Waffen SS. Equipped with second-rate weapons and equipment (they should have thanked for this to Heer bureaucrats), they fought like hell for almost six years, from the mud of Poland to the frozen plains of Russia and the Ardenne valleys. Not all of them, of course, but 12 of the 38 Waffen SS Divisions(not all of them composed of Germans) might have been the toughest military force ever seen. 12 Divisions = 240,000 of the finest fighters of Europe. The multi-national army raised by Hitler to stop the Red tide had proved its value on the front. After Hitler's change of speech of 1942, when the quest for Lebensraum was replaced by the need to stop the "barbarians from the East", hundreds of thousands of young Europeans had joined the SS. The news journals of 1943 shown long queues of boys waiting to the SS drafting commision. From Norway to Spain and from France to Ukraine, they went to fight to save the Europe. Some of the most admired military commanders in Germany were not of German origin - Miguel Ezquerra and Leon Degrelle are the best examples.

As for their battleworthiness - just let's say that the worn out, poorly equipped and surprised Waffen SS men had wiped out the Allied paratroopers, while the 17-year old boys of the 12th SS Hitlerjugend had resisted the Allied tide under impossible conditions. And these were regular troops. I think the men of Otto Skorzeny could have made hamburgers out of any US Marine(and then cook the hamburgers with a Flammenwerfer 41).
8) The way Skorzeny was loathed by both the Westerners and Commies shows they feared him like hell.

~Regards,

Ovidius

[Ovidius]

, "If I ever was to have a son, I would like him to be like you." - Adolf Hitler to Leon Degrelle 8)

[JohnRayTaylor]

Here's my two cents it has to be the Waffen-SS.
JohnRayTaylor