NATO Module: Experience Levels of Troops

[Sequoia]

For discussion's sake, should German and Dutch troops that will be coming in the NATO module, generally be more likely to have lower experience levels than equivilent US and British and even Canadian troops in scenarios in which they are present? One could argue that years of counterinsurgency in Iraq and /or Afghanistan does not make one more experienced in the conventional warfare most often represented in CMSF.

[Elmar Bijlsma]

The Dutch and Canadians have been active in Iraq and Afghanistan for quite a while. So they wouldn't have fallen that far behind their warmongering cousins. The Germans are seeing quite a bit of action in their end of Afghanistan too.

But I wouldn't think any experience gap would have translated in very different troop quality anyway.

I could get behind a bit more officer/NCO bonuses. I think that is where the real benefit of experienced troops is: people accustomed to command at the sharp end.

[Sequoia]

I would never deny that the German and Dutch armies had picked up some experience in Afghanistan and have the casualties to prove it and I don't want to make this thread political but in 2008 probably every member of the US Army and Marine Corps who had been in service for more than one year had served at least one tour in either Iraq or Afghanistan. A high proportion of the proportion of both the British and Canadian army would have done so as well. I don't know what proportion of the Dutch army has done so but in the German case haven't most of the troops in Afghanistan been airborne and other elite units?

[Elmar Bijlsma]

For the Dutch it is roughly a Battalion strength commitment since 2003 in post invasion Iraq and then a switch to Afghanistan from 2006 onwards. From the top of my head 11-12 infantry battalions of one kind or another that'd be likely to be rotated, 5 months at a time. Plus supporting units, some doing more, some doing less.

But by now I reckon most have had their baptism of fire.

We've been pretty light on armour though, so they mostly would've missed out.

Sure, it pales in comparison to US or British efforts, but the Dutch army knows what it is about. I doubt there'd be very noticable difference in quality.

[Secondbrooks]

I've started to loose believe that experience bases on how much guys have been in somewhere, it can turn other way around also. Even more so when talking about COIN/low intensity-experience versus hot conventional war-experience. Atleast my own nations history shows this, when Soviet union launched it's offence in -44. Troops which had rather heavy combat experience from -39 had got it easy in static and relatively peaceful "trench warfare"-phase in -42-44 for couple of years and their performance when things got hot wasn't what it used to be and i don't know did all units ever recover from it. In same time units stationed behind front lines and being under training program for hot war did perform much better.

Simply by training guys to work in hot conventional war can provide much more capable units than taking men from COIN/low intensity-conflict and throwing them into hot conventional war. There's lots of variables in table which will effect how unit performs.

Like Elmar Bijlsma said, in such case COIN-units would/might get bonuses into leadership etc... Then again there are evidence that long service times together are one way to nag away NCO's and junior officer's leadership. And when Sh!t hits the fan whole unit cohesion can grumble down or atleast show it's darker face. + Lots of variables more.