Since we are on the brink of a new military conflict, I want to know who you think were the US GI's most and least formidable enemys from wars past.

most: japanese at the BEGINNING of WW2
     North Vietnamese



least: iraqis

Most formidable foe (in all wars): Polititians
Least: Iraqi

a 2nd Lt. (???)

Most formidable - The Confederacy.  They killed more US troopers than any other foe.

Second - The North Koreans in the first couple of months of the war.  Almost pushed us into the sea.

Third - The Japanese

Least - a tie between the invading British in 1814 at the Battle of New Orleans (14 US dead, several thousand Brits)and the Iraqi.

I'm going to dig deep and say that the British Army/Navy at the beginning of the American Revolution was our most formidable foe.

Our least formidable foe? Grenada. Hands down. For Christs sake doesn't anyone remember Grenada?

Most formidable? The Confederacy.

Most formidable foriegn WW-II Germans. They fought most of the rest of the world. By the time Normandy was invaded they had spent most of their resources fighting the USSR. And yet they still extracted a signifigant toll on us. Not to mention they were undermanned, underequipped, fighting against the Allies that had total air suprmeacy.

Foreign foe: Germany in WW2. Japan tied with N. Vietnamese for second.

Least: Iraq, with Mexico second.

Most=WW2 Germany, the most highly trianed and well equiped we have ever faced.

Least=Persian Gulf, Iraq. The Iraqi mass surrender can only be matched by the French Army when the Wehrmacht rolled in.

Least: a tie between the Vichy-French and the Italians in WWII.

GunLvr

Isn't it funny how, when the Italians were with the Axis, they were starting to lose.  But, when they switched sides and joined the Allied forces, we started to suffer some setbacks?  I think that was part of the German plan.

Seminoles Apaches Commanches
Huks

Trenchfoot, malaria, infection...

a GI's most formidable foe from wars past?

1. a career-oriented, micro-managing, liberal-minded senior officer, who, if youre really having a bad life, might also be a DemocRAT.

least formidable?

2. the "soldiers" who fought that Mutha of all battles a decade or so ago.

most formidable: WW2 Germans, these guys might have been evil, but they totally had their shit together. Smart, and physically tough. My grandfather (a BAR gunner on Omaha) told me that the Germans gave him nightmares for years to come, that they were like machines.

least formidable: Iraqi Army. This one I know, as I personally fought against 3 seperate elements of 3 Republican Guard divisions in 4 days of combat and my unit (the 3 ACR) kicked ass on all comers, with minimal casaulties (we lost 1 man killed in my unit and 44 wounded) We killed hundreds and captured thousands. These suckers had no business being on the same battlefield as the U.S. Army and Marines.

One thing is for sure, the Germans had some really well designed equipment in WWII.

MG-42 light machine gun.

Me-262 jet aircraft.

There Panzers were much better than our Shermans ( "lights every time").

V2 rocket

etc...

Most:  The NVA.  The Chinese in Korea following closely.

Some have said the Condeferacy.  I would agree, but civil wars tend to be horribly bloody anyway.


Least:  The Japanese.  We turned the tide of war in a matter of months.  They had a very small number of decent officers.  Technologically they were way behind the times.  Their belief of the importance of spirit over weaponry proved to be their downfall.  Some have said that the Japs were crude amatuers at best, bumbling idiots at worst.

I have heard it said that venereal disease generated more casualties in WWII than anything else, sometimes at a ratio of 10/1 when compared to combat casuaties. Anyone else ever heard this stat?

1) Disease
WWI Influenza and other maladies.

2) Confederacy, who knew better how to fight an American than other Americans.

3) The Germans of both WWI and WWII. We were just lucky to get in the war after they had lost their best troops.


The worst,
1) Iraq, but I want to give a lot of credit to the Air Force for breaking their backs before and during the ground war.
2) The NVA & Viet Cong, poor strategies and tactics, just dogged determination kept them in the game. The casualty rates we inflicted on them were amazing.

BORDOM

Mexico was voted one of our least formidable enemies ?  Rememeber Davy Crockett, one of the Heros of the Alamo was killed by a drunken Mexican...

That was the Chinese, not the North Koreans.  The US had pretty much wiped out the North Koreans before the Chinese came storming across the North Korea/Chinese border.

I personally think the toughest was the Japanese in WWII, especially as the US got closer to their homeland.

For the current wars:

Television and the Press Corps

Yes, because it was an ideological fight from within against the guy down the street rather than some outside, nationalistic interest. Defining the "enemy" was a difficult task.

One point about the Japanese.

While I agree that most of their war mechanization was second rate, especially their hodgepodge of battle rifles and ammo, they did come up with some remarkable stuff.

Example: They introduced "cold rolled" propeller shafts which torqued much less then their western counterparts. This, along with extremely light weight, accounted for the astounding acceleration rate of the Zero fighter.

More Americans died in the Civil War, 600,000 appx, than ALL the other wars the US has fought. There were battles that had casualty rates of 10,000 in 10 minutes.

A word about the Japanese. I don't think their equipment was neccesarily second rate. Look at their aircraft carriers, battleships, and cruisers. The had liquid oxygen torpedoes that had incredible range at very high speeds, 10 times the range of the German's best torpedoes.

BUT, they had no training programs to replace lost soldiers, sailors, or airmen that had advanced skills.

They used their I-boats for scouting, not attack, even though they were probably the most formidable submarines in WW-II until the Germans deployed their type XXI boats.

They couldn't supply their troops once American airpower stepped up. They had no way to replace destroyed ships. They were dependent on imported oil that was in short supply before the war. They had no effective defense from US submarines, 60% of Japanese shipping tonnage lost in WW-II was taken by US subs. We had relatively few subs.

They were awful naval gunners. They ran en-masse at US positions, as long as the MG's stayed in the battle it meant slaughter. Look at the USMC battles of WW-II, sure the USMC didn't have an easy time. But they usually killed 10-20x the enemy soldiers than killed or wounded USMC.

They didn't believe in damage control onboard ships. US ships removed most decorative, flammable wood, material etc. from our warships. Easier to prevent a fire rather than have to put it out. Not the Japanese way.

The individual Japanese soldier, sailor, marine, or flyer, was very committed to their country and Emperor. That didn't make them good soldiers, just committed.

Compare it to the Germans. They also had massive supply line problems, equipment disbursemnet problems, and attrition problems.

Up until the last days of the war they had skilled pilots flying advanced planes. They made ballistic missiles, and the first real submarines, (type XXI and XXIII).

The individual German soldier, at least the first rate troops were still a match for USA, British, or Russian troops in a 1 to 1 fight until the final days of the war, but they didn't have many chances for even fights. They still fought with determination and skill. They had some very skilled leaders, and the most skilled, highly trained front line troops.

They made 1800 Tiger I and Tiger II tanks. Russsia made something like 50,000 T-34's, the US made 49,230 Shermans. The Tiger I was simply a heavily armored tank with an above average gun. Yet on both the Eastern and Western Fronts single Tiger I's would hold off battalion, regeminetal or larger formations of Allied tanks.

Major Otto Classius and his exuctive officer in 2 Tiger I's destroyed a Russian armored shock regiment in 15 minutes. Capt. Whittman in 1 tank held up and entire British Division outside Normandy.

Those Tigers were good, the crews were what made them feared.

I'm sorry the Japanese were a threat for a very short time, but they had so many equipment, logisitical, and training problems they couldn't deal with any real losses.

The Germans almost beat the rest of the world.