RE: 2nd/3rd rate powers - LLAR - and now Africans...

--- Adrian Johnson <adrian.johnson@sympatico.ca>
wrote:

> Ask the British regulars who were wiped out at
> Isandlawanda.  The worst
> defeat at the hands of "native forces" the British
> army faced *ever*.  

Actually, the Boer War went far worse.	After wiping
out one column due to incredibly poor leadership on
the part of that commander, the Zulu nation was more
or less wiped out as a fighting force.

Having one good day does not translate into being a
credible military power.

> the British beat them
> silly once they had their act together, but that was
> 2000 years of
> technological advantage talking, not necessarily
> just the training, quality
> and fighting spirit of the troops.  If the Zulus had

Well, by that standard wolverines and grizzly bears
should be on the list.	However, technology does
matter.  Besides which, they don't seem to have done
much with the technology the Soviets gave them for a
song as "fraternal socialist allies."

> Your comments ignore all of North Africa, right? 

Well, they are usually assumed to be IFed rather than
PAU.

> Some of the units of the
> modern era Egyptian and Algerian armies might be
> pretty decent - the
> Egyptian combat engineers did a pretty good job
> breaching the Israeli canal
> defenses, for example.  

Whereupon the rest of the Egyptian Army ran into the
Israeli Army and got destroyed as a fighting force. 
Nice try, though.
 
> The Moroccan army is supposed to have some very good
> troops, one author I
> read called them the best in the arab world (and
> yeah, I know you aren't
> exactly the biggest arab fan, but there are some
> good units out there...
> the Jordanians have some also).

Moroccans have this reputation why?  Chasing Polisario
guerillas?  Because they don't have any conventional
combat experience that I'm aware of.

Unless they sent troops to Palestine in 1948 to get
kicked apart by Israeli kibbutzim.
 
John

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