Hitman, your “basic” training may have been 4 months for cheap
cannon fodder like you, mine was almost a year before I was
considered “active NSman”.
And I call bullshit on your “great mission”. The only thing of
note that could even be considered “great” is the Boxing Day
Tsunami relief efforts, which, if you took part in,
STILL does not give you tactical understanding or
training. And besides, it’s probably a “group salute”, not to you
personally. Doubt the general even knows you exist.
You complain of the survivability of our troops, then recommend
cutting training to even below the bare basic. How does that
improve survivability? And drones? Drone operator course +
BMT is even longer than 4 months, you cut cost to buy
drones that no one will have the training to use. Your logic
seriously fails.
thats what i have been telling u not very bright folks to get
more regulars instead of relying on cheaper forms of soldiers.if u
consider troops of 4months as cannon fodder then perhaps ns troops
with 2 years would be considered as cannon fodder as compared
to regular professionals with 10 years "training"so if u are an ns
and there are folks who think like u...then all the ns conscripts
are classified as cannon fodder and expendables.thats your logic to
the world that we dont need.
relief efforts????u need a miitary to do relief efforts?then u
should be in a red cross mission insteD OF A MILITary mission.your
verion of a military and its associated missions is only
limited to a nurse looking after the sick.
u need to survive???train harder and in real battle
conditions!dont come here with your miserable mistake of
conscription .u may be cheap....u may not be military....u may not
even have thought of the military as a career. in conclusion u
shouldnt be preaching about real soldiers or your part time ns
soldiers in here.its your logic thats in question.
drones are very expensive equipment.they dont need ns for it.why
should they get part time soldiers to fly them???in that case they
might as well get ns conscription pilots to fly F-14 jet
fighters or get ns conscripts to become admirals and generals
too!from your point of logic,u expect too much from a mere 2 years
of ns.in which case one should sign on as a regular...if u know
theres too much at stake and cant do it in 2 years then go for a
regular service.2 years isnt enough to earn confidence in
most military units.,,,so i guess cannon fodder confidence should
be around there.u really are cannon fodder from looks of it.
but perhaps you arent smart enough to figure out stuff on
your own.lemme show u what u gave to your world:
Under the Ming dynasty, being a soldier was an inherited
condition. This meant that the Ming army was recruited from a
professional warrior class, however, quite unlike indo-european
societies where the warrior class typically held high status (and
often political power), the Ming-era Chinese considered their
soldiers to be scum. This had a strong negative impact on the
motivation and morale of their troops. The system's main advantage
was that it allowed easy replacement of casualties--if a soldier
was killed, his family had to furnish a replacement or lose their
livelyhood and end up as beggars...
The Ming infantry was organised into "companies" of 112 men each.
These units, like European lances, were essentially admnistrative
units containing proportions of different specialist troops
which would logically be grouped together on the battlefield. About
40% of the ming footsoldiers (in theory, of course) were
spearmen/pikemen, forming the main battle-line and holding off the
attacks of the enemy, especially the cavalry of the steppe nomads.
About as many soldiers would be armed with some kind of ranged
weapon--bow, crossbow, or fire-arm of some kind (however, after the
Yongle emperor, firearms were deployed by seperate 'firearms
battalions'), so the Ming armies could put out a considerable
volume of fire (quite necessary when facing horse-archer-based
foes, might I add). The remainder were sword-and-shield troops,
ostensibly to attack and defeat enemy infantry. The foot-soldiers
were armoured with various combinations of chain, brigandine, and
lamellar.
One feature that has to be noted about the Ming military was its
centralisation, often excessive given the limitations of the time.
The Ming government often re-equiped and re-trained entire armies
for a specific campaign (see for instance Yongle's intensive
preparations for his invasion of Dai Viet); however, Ming troops
often lacked part (or even all) of their regular default equipment.
The hereditary military system also made it impossible to adjust
the military's size to the empire's current needs rapidly (in
theory, the number of soldiers ought always to be the same) so that
during times of relative peace large segments of the army were
employed in a non-military capacity--noteably to transport grain to
Beijing after Yongle moved his capital back there. This was
expedient and economical, but ruined the fighting ability of the
units concerned and eventually that of the entire army.
The Ming employed a vast number of weird and wondrous firearms and
siege weapons. Perhaps the most important fire-arm was the fire
lance--essentially a spear packed in a disposable launch tube and
fired from the shoulder, like a modern anti-tank weapon. It filled
broadly the same role as the latter, being able to penetrate just
about any armour, and, according to the claims of some contemporary
Chinese sources, several soldiers in one go (take this with a
barrow-load of salt, however). Fire arrows (rocket-propelled
arrows), various types of gonnes (including repeating ones), hand
grenades, large rocket-missiles and a miscelleany of light and very
light cannons were also common. Grapeshot was known and often fired
from light, tripod-mounted guns that could be carried around by a
two-man team. It should be noted that the Ming usually made use of
iron bullets. Compared to lead projectiles, this made for smaller
holes in people but superior armour-piercing abilities. In addition
to killing people, the firearms were also extremely scary,
especially for the Sout-East Asian elephants that had long been the
bane of Chinese armies.
