French Stratage, I assume you have the information to back up your average age? If the average French enlisted soldier was 25 (by the way the average newly enlisted soldier int eh US military is 26.8), with 8 years of experience, would tehy not be joining up when they were young? A higher number of youngins in the French army would lower that average age considerably. But please send links that actually link. And please send me a link of empiracle data showing that the average French soldier has 8 years of experience, when they were only a conscript army 6 years ago. I think your jumping the gun on how professional your newly professional army really is.

French stratege always makes extremely generous statements about anything French, and his "Facts" are largely unfactual or biased...and thus he usually gets owned by most members on this forum.

DirtyKraut

The links work: you have only to replace the * by t in h*tp (because of a problem of SP site).LOL

The french army of today is made of the professional units of yesterday.Only conscript units were dismantled, but the french army was not for decades a pure conscript army but a mix of a professional part and a conscript army.

Professional units of today were for most alredy full professional units 3 decades ago.

 

 

Now GOP: UNLESS YOU, I BACK MY CLAIMS WITH LINKS AND DATA!

And I'm of the very few on this site!

I try only to restablish the truth.

So stop thi skind of comment.I can be also insultng.

 

French Stratege, I was asking where you got the average enlisted man has 8 years experience, not the average age. Average age of an enlisted soldier is 25, that's great, it's 26.8 in the US military. Average age of Officers 38-39, similar to the average age of 36 for a US officer, and the officers of many moder militiaries. When the French army was conscripted, a large part of their ranks were made up of conscripts serving 1-2 year terms, while of course it was never fully conscripted, (Neither was the US army). But as for the average French enlisted man having 8 years of experience, show me that this is not something you made up to help yourself sleep better at night.

What you don't understand DirtyKraut is that in French army, enlisted means soldiers who are  not NCO.

NCO are almost all commissioned underofficers and they can serve until 42 years and get a retirement.

It is a difference with USA where NCO means non commisioned officer.

When I give age of french enlisted soldiers (non NCO and called EVAT in France) , its not age of NCO as document I provided mention it.Average age including NCO is about 33 years.

As I said you a large part of soldiers (not NCO)  were already there in french army before 2001.

For the average enlisted man defined in a similar way of USA so including Sergent and Corporal who are underofficers in France (and commissioned) , and NCO in USA,  is well above 10 years

If we consider non NCO french enlisted men, average time of service is 6 years and goal is 8 for french army.

 

 

Professional units were made only with professionals including soldiers and these units are almost  in same number for infantry than before 2001.

It is draftee units which have been dismantled.

WE HAVE THE ALMOST SAME NUMBER OF INFANTRY PROFESSIONAL REGIMENTS THAN DURING THE DRAFT (UNDERSTOOD?).So ending draft has not changed anything.And the draft was not ended brutaly BTW but reduced progressively.In 2001 most of draftee infantry regiments which were second line regiments, were already disbanded for years.

When french army used draftees before 2001, almost one third of active army combat units were  full professional units.An other third part was made of mixed professional units (almost all professional in combat platoon of an infantry regiment and best draftees in support inside the regiment).One third were draftee regiments were NCOs were professionals. Draftees were in support units for most or on air base (protection, truck , secretary etc..).

 

 

 

So nearly half the men were draftees? Only 25% of Americans were conscripts in the Vietnam war. And I don't think you will find an army today where the average NCO (or Euro.French equivalent) has 10 years of experience, and you have no way to back that up. You have given me the average age of a French enlisted soldier, 25. And you said that he served a minimum of 8 years. So, your saying on average, people join the French army when they are 17? Don't they need parental consent like here in the US, and if that is indeed the average age, wouldn't there be a lot of 17 year olds serving now, to keep up with this trend? The average age of the newly enlisted soldier in the US military is 26.8. The average age of an officer in the US army is 34. (I am correcting a mistake, as I put 36 before). So considering the average age of a newly enlisted is 26.8, one can assume the average age of a US enlisted soldier can only be higher. So the average French officer has 3-4 more years on him, this actually doesn't mean much. Considering ROTC and the academies far outwieghs OCS graduates, these officers have been officers for a while. The same cannot be said for the French.

Hello Aussigunner,

I have also seen alot of clips you describe. But do not be fooled by a few clips. The mission of Marine Corp is not to sustain combat on the ground.  That is the mission of the Army, which by the way, they do very well. The Marines assaults in iraq were nothing short of suicide missions.  The Marine Corp did its job, which is to spearhead assaults and invassions, and did it the way they allways do.  That is to say, they kill every enemy combatant in their path.  I was active duty in the Marine Corp from 1980 to 1984. During this period we found ourselves in police actions throughout the world.  Not what we were trained for; however we improvised, adapted and overcame in most situations.  Marines are trained to do the unthinkable, in the most misserable and dangerous of conditions, against enemies who usually have the strategic and logistical upperhand, and do it with far less manpower, technology and resources than any military in the world.  If you should ever find yourself and your country under attack by god know who,  No doubt, the Marine Corp will end up on your shores, saving your ass.

God, I love the Marine Corp.

Hello Aussigunner,

I have also seen alot of clips you describe. But do not be fooled by a few clips. The mission of Marine Corp is not to sustain combat on the ground.  That is the mission of the Army, which by the way, they do very well. The Marines assaults in iraq were nothing short of suicide missions.  The Marine Corp did its job, which is to spearhead assaults and invassions, and did it the way they allways do.  That is to say, they kill every enemy combatant in their path.  I was active duty in the Marine Corp from 1980 to 1984. During this period we found ourselves in police actions throughout the world.  Not what we were trained for; however we improvised, adapted and overcame in most situations.  Marines are trained to do the unthinkable, in the most misserable and dangerous of conditions, against enemies who usually have the strategic and logistical upperhand, and do it with far less manpower, technology and resources than any military in the world.  If you should ever find yourself and your country under attack by god know who,  No doubt, the Marine Corp will end up on your shores, saving your ass.

God, I love the Marine Corp.

If you have the word "Royal" in your battalion title you MUST be, hands down the BEST infantry in the world...The ROYAL (Tasmanian/Welsh/Scots/Calgary) Sheep Buggerers are INHERENTLY better than any Colonial mob....

 

One film clip and we're making conclusions,EH?  Let me run a film clip of the Royal Tasmanian Sheep Buggerers "bashing a square" and let me conclude that the Australian Army is a bunch of Poofta's good only for parades.

 

I'm sure that your unit would NEVER do any of these things....of course we need some film clips to prove it.