If we were to take today's warriors, with all the training and knowledge, and put them into WW1, with WW1 equipment. How would they fair?

2016-05-22T23:30:00-04:00

Response by SFC Josh Billingsley made May 22 at 2016 11:34 PM

2016-05-22T23:34:54-04:00

Our army is trained now for independent thinking. I'm not sure that this philosophy would work well in older field battles, but with a large group of independent strategists it might have turned out better..

Response by SGT Timothy Summers made May 22 at 2016 11:53 PM

2016-05-22T23:53:54-04:00

I think they would fare much better with advanced knowledge and training

Response by CPT Jack Durish made May 23 at 2016 12:37 AM

2016-05-23T00:37:00-04:00

They'd most likely be court martialed. They would know too much to follow orders like climb out of that trench in human wave attack in broad daylight

Response by SPC Christopher Harvey made May 23 at 2016 12:37 AM

2016-05-23T00:37:06-04:00

todays army thinks more so i think we would do pretty well.

Response by MSG Private RallyPoint Member made May 23 at 2016 1:37 AM

2016-05-23T01:37:05-04:00

1. Would they be fighting the 1914, 1915, 1916, 1917 or 1918 Armies?
2. And which? The German, Austro-Hungarians, Turks, Bulgarians?
3. Also I assume by today's servicemembers you are including the battle tested Iraq and Afghanistan.

Response by SSG Michael LeGrand made May 23 at 2016 2:04 AM

2016-05-23T02:04:22-04:00

I think the organizational piece would be better.... Soldiers would be better trained and better equipped but at the end of the day I think the mentality of today's soldier would be the downfall... I don't think today's soldier has the mental toughness like the soldiers did back in WW1 or WW2....... We rely more on tech to do our job in today's military then anything else and forgot how to do things without it...

Response by Lt Col Private RallyPoint Member made May 23 at 2016 3:46 AM

2016-05-23T03:46:59-04:00

We would have a hard time because we wouldn't have our reflective belts on. Sorry, couldn't resist.

Seriously we would be able to adapt to the equipment to certain extent. Our current forces are combat trained so we probably would switch our tactics to more current doctrine. The one advantage would be the fact that we have a better trained force then in WW1. It was the US policy back then to drastically stand down the military until it was needed. We relied on conscription back then. When WW1 happened we had to rapidly train and equip a force that had no experience. Now we would be able to go in with a combat hardened force.

I imagine we would utilize air power more effectively, as it was widely dismissed as a optimal capability by the Army traditionalists who still believed battlefields were fought on horse back. If we kept our current doctrine, we would rapidly raise the Air Force or the Army Air Service. Then we would commence a rapid air campaign followed by an intense Naval battle. We would try to dominate the skies get air supremacy and then send in the ground force. Our goal would be to harass and demoralize the enemy so bad that they would be fair game for air to ground chemical attacks. I would imagine massive air to ground chem attacks would be an option. We would kill off their food supply so we can starve them. Then once this is all done we would go in with the Army and hold ground and get them to surrender.

Our downfall would be adapting to a different command and control that does not rely on satellite data links and rapid release of intel. We would have to pre-coordinate the battle plan well in advance.

Response by CSM Darieus ZaGara made May 23 at 2016 6:16 AM

2016-05-23T06:16:51-04:00

The service have never faltered in the face of combat, where one persons falls short another backs them up, Team This has stood true since the Revolutionary war. They would do the same as our fore fathers!

Response by MSgt James Mullis made May 23 at 2016 9:22 AM

2016-05-23T09:22:46-04:00

It depends on the situation you throw them into. Over time the modern soldiers would die of dysentery or some other camp related illness that they've never been exposed to in modern life. Most of the soldiers in WW1 came off of farms where they lived with animals, cut wood for heat, drank water out of cisterns/wells and hunted for their meat. Even those who came from the cities had spent a lifetime exposed to open sewer drains, horse and people manure filled streets, and contaminated water supplies their whole lives.