Best army in WWI

Veeky Forums, which country had *the* best army in WWII? Marines can be included (for Japan, UK, and US' sake)

what CANNOT be factored in:
>production capabilities (i.e. size of economy, degree of industrialization, historical degree of economic mobilization)
>who won/lost
>length of time in the war
>absolute size of the army
>other dumb shit

purely from a doctrinal/leadership/discipline perspective (technology can maybe be factored in, but only if it was actually used in the war and if it actually worked -- sorry Maus)

pic unrelated

title is a typo. i clearly mean WWII

If production capabilities are excluded, then the answer is unironically Japan.

USAs airforce is probably the most hands above the rest. Literally no competitors.

Land forces it's much closer. Man for man the Germans did the best but later in the war I'd say the Allies pulled more even.

In the Pacific it's not even close, the Japs btfo the Chinese and the Yanks btfo the Japs.

Are you high? The literalyl only things the IJA was good at were

>Moving through jungles because they don't carry any heavy equipment worth mentioning
>Fighting to the last man in hopeless positions.

The IJA was shit. Their offensive capability on a pure land assault in the open was literally less than Italy-tier.

Maybe in the Navy. Definitely not on land.

Does anyone have the Battles of the Isonzo wikipedia picture?

>Less than Italy
>Dominated Chinese who had way more resources and manpower than the Ethiopians had.

They look bad because USA had the second best infantry in the war (to the Germans) and air and naval superiority in most battles.

When the Japs controlled the sky and sea they beat the Yanks many times.

Reports from American and/or British commanders in the Pacific routinely expressed something approaching (but not quite) admiration for how hard the Japanese Army was able to fight considering how much it was almost always fighting at a very severe material disadvantage. There was even a marine on Iowa Jima who commented that if there were ever another war, he would hope that the Japs were on our side next time.

I think it's well accepted that the German army employed the best doctrines in the war, at least at the tactical and operational levels, was lead by experienced generals and talented NCOs, and had high discipline. They were very effective on the battlefield, as people like Dupuy have shown, but World War II was a battle of economies, and their economic inferiority is what led to their downfall.

They looked bad because they were bad. China was a dungheap, and were engaged in a civil war during the war with Japan. Their successes against the U.S. and the Commonwealth were inevitably fighting against garrisons which were 9/10ths colonial troops and 1/10ths at most troops from the colonizing power. When they tried to attack in the open, they got pasted, hard. Look up how bad the attack on Wake Island was, and that was barely garrisoned at all.


And what? That doesn't count? I guess the 120th division of the Chinese Communists was one of the best formations of the war. They beat the Japanese with units that were mostly armed with swords and spears! They couldn't repeat the performance, and they took horrible losses, but they showed a shining spirit in defiance of their extreme material disadvantages.

Back in the real world, yes, when you are chronically and intrinsically unable to match the equipment of your adversaries, you are weaker than they are. That's part of the game.

Can there even be any doubt?

>Back in the real world, yes, when you are chronically and intrinsically unable to match the equipment of your adversaries, you are weaker than they are. That's part of the game.
The OP has graciously said that production capabilities don't matter this time. Japan wins.

But he does talk about how "technology" can be factored in, as long as it was something that was actually field-used. I'm pretty sure he's trying to take overall size out of the equation, not equipment of a given line unit. In which case we have to dump Japan back near the bottom.

Doesn't really make sense to omit something so critical

We literally already have a fucking thread for this, try reading the catalog

>Hon Hon, we've built the greatest Fortifications ever. Surely this will stop l'allemands.
>but what if they drive around it?
>They couldn't possibly do that, there's a forest there.

You’re insane. They were practically 1914-tier on land and they just threw their planes and ships away carelessly, they were shit.

Equal US numbers means the US troops win, each and every aspect of the US army is superior to the Japanese army: the guns, the carriers, the planes once they got hellcats, the artillery, the tactics, everything. They were inferior and they got merc’d. This revisionism is desperate. The Germans were clearly the best axis power and the most efficient army, when you look st their resources compared to the combined strength of Russia, France, england, and the United States, it’s pretty crazy that the war lasted as long as it did and that they pushed so far. The Japanese bullies a bunch of Chinese peasants and then were soundly defeated by the same country that opened their ports and revolutionized their society in the first place. Japan forgot who daddy was, and they were given a brutal reminder that they were merely pretenders trying to replicate the world the US introduced them to.

again, r*s', due to the presence of hohols
hohol mafia

>USA above someone
>length of time in the war

unironically Norway.
If the Allies reinforced the beacheads and didn't pull out they could've saved the country

Wasnt the real reason why Gamelin fucked up was the fact that he put all his soldiers in the frontline and none as reserves, leaving the armies very vulnerable to encirclements?

>hello i can't be bothered to read the second post where OP corrects a typo
please fucking kill yourself my man

>Their offensive capability on a pure land assault in the open was literally less than Italy-tier.
During Operation Ichi-Go, 500,000 Japanese troops with 800 tanks, 15,000 trucks, 6,000 artillery pieces, and 100,000 horses in a single five-month operation overran a heavily populated land roughly twice the size of Germany while killing, capturing, or wounding 700,000 opposing Chinese soldiers equipped by the Americans with American air support.

Name one operation by Italy (or really any power not called Germany, USSR, USA, and a Lend-Lease-energized Britain) that even came close to that in scale.

The Germans easily take the gold medal, with France taking the Silver.

This was referring to WW1

For WW2 it goes: USA > Germany > USSR > UK > Japan > Italy

>Veeky Forums histories and humanities
>americans with no high-school understanding of history aren't banned

BEF before going full retard
Canada after the BEF went full retard
>ww1
>us Air Force
Retard or American?

this wasn't the misunderstanding. On the contrary Gamelin expected a German offensive through Belgium a la 1914 and the Schlieffen Plan. Blunder lay in the lack of a strategic reserve, which meant that a single penetration anywhere along the French defensive line could (and did) lead to a mass breakthrough which could be exploited by rapid armoured forces.

This should sum it up
For nationalism sakes I would say the UK
But I can’t deny the US did some very impressive stuff
The SS units in France were also very good at stalling the allied advance

WWI - I think UK had the largest professional army from the right off, but I’d put money on the Germans having the most professional, efficient army.
WWII - It’s a bit more complicated. “Best“ is a really tricky word that depends so much on context. Best, really, for what? Determine what the context is, first.

German>French>British>Russian>Italian>Austrian>Turkish

I'm not sure how the Bulgarians, Greeks, Serbs, Japanese fit into this, but from what I've heard the Serbs were pretty capable, they just didnt have the manpower or industrial capacity to face the Austrians

Oh shit, I didn't realize you were talking about ww2

It's more complicated in WW2 but from 1939 to mid 43 the Germans had the most powerful military in the world, after which it was the soviets