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The latter, it’s not even close. Infantry hasn’t changed that much, air combat is like night and day (sometimes literally).
See all the cases where modern militaries have had their asses handed to them by guys with WWII surplus weapons.
Modern air wins, absolutely no question. Look at the gulf war. Baghdad, a HIGHLY defended city with an insanely sophisticated AA network got smashed to rubble and their air force destroyed and routed because the US got the leash taken off for a minute.
Air dominance wins fights period. As long as those WWII boys have radios and maps, they just sit back and watch the fireworks.
Air dominance wins fights period. As long as those WWII boys have radios and maps, they just sit back and watch the fireworks.
Infantry exists to paint targets for people with real guns
You can’t take or hold a city with air force.
Infantry is needed for that
What exactly does “take a city” mean? If you’re not too squeamish then you’ll find you don’t need infantry, just a few MIRVs.
Depends on what your purpose is with it.
21st Century Air Force. Modern ground forces rely on air superiority to win.
WW2 ground forces will win. Modern munitions stores are a lot smaller, so they will cease to be a factor within weeks of a full scale war. Ww2 munition stores on the other hand were gigantic.
Then the WW2 ground forces will win, as air forces cannot hold ground.
WW2 forces will get obliterated at nighttime, no night vision. Assuming modern ground forces are still alive by nighttime, that is.
I fully expect that they can hide pretty well at night. They’ll take modest losses maybe, but wiping them out completely while the forces looking for them get picked off by helicopters is a tall order.
I expect the modern airforce to be in the fight long enough for the modern ground forces to run out of munitions.
The modern air force would wipe out the ww2 air force, break for lunch, then the ground forces would start getting pummeled by precision munitions fired from outside the range they can retaliate at.
Meanwhile, ww2 ground forces would be very bored.
If the modern air force can take out some modern ground troops, the ww2 ground troops could loot their corpses to be somewhat modern-ish ground troops. The modern air force could use radio to explain how to use the equipment, if they have access to wikipedia.
Modern airforce will result in ww2 airforce not existing, so what you’re left with is ww2 ground + modern air vs modern ground, which I’m sure favors the ww2 ground forces who have proper air support.
Edit: nevermind, I totally agree
It’s a question of modern air vs modern ground. Modern air vs air is a trivial battle so you end up with modern tanks vs WW2 tanks with air support. With enough atacms it’s a win for air I think.
Yeah, the WW2 units might as well just stay home.
Modern air outclasses modern ground, but if I’m fighting and nukes are in play, I’m going with ground so I’ll die from the blast instead of radiation and starvation.
Are we talking about same amount WW2 vs modern, or WW2 amount of units vs modern amount of units?
WW2 used huge amount of everything.
I think it’s only fair we respect the number of units they had
I would ask why the attack helos are in the “air force” category.
Other than that, there’s supposedly an old joke about two Soviet generals watching the tank parade drive down the Champs-Élysées, and one turns to the other and asks: “Say, Trofim, did we ever figure out who won the air war?”
WWII units collapse on both sides. Modern ground forces win easily.
The problem with WWII units is are they manned with modern or legacy personnel? If modern, not even your best WarThunder leakier or DCS rivet-counter is going to be able to keep 1940s tech going. If you use legacy personnel, how do you motivate them to fight once they see what we’ve done with the world they left us?
How much obsolete tech does the WW2 infantry have, is the question - e.g. if it’s US troops then they’ll have Garands, which are only obsolescent, and they only need to stall until the modern air force can come help.
…actually, no. The modern air force could split up, put 10%ish of its forces into ROFLstomping the WW2 air force and the other 90% into supporting the WW2 infantry. So the WW2 infantry will always have air support from the moment the war starts. If the air force can obliterate a few platoons of modern infantry, then the WW2 infantry can scavenge some of their equipment and level the playing field a bit.
Depends on how many missiles each side can afford.
On one hand, modern AA is extremely good, and if the ground force is peppered with SAMs and forward recon/detection, a modern airforce will struggle mightily, depending on the terrain and intelligence.
On the other hand… can the bombers just launch a boatload of cruise missiles, spotted by the WWII ground forces? This is even more expensive and impractical, but it would work.
So I think modern ground wins with a sane budget, and modern air wins with an “infinite” ammo budget.
Modern ground would not be able to protect their supply chain from modern air. Bases would be leveled by day 2 with dwindling fuel and ammo supplies. Modern air wouldn’t need to bomb every tank and spend trillions they could just starve the war machine.
This is a good point.
But does the modern ground have missile launchers? Maybe conventional ballistic missiles? They could level airbases as well.
Again it seems like this battle depends on topography and “first strike” timing.
The BUFF should have been on both sides
Gut feeling is modern ground force, as that’s what takes and holds territory at the end of the day, and Ukraine shows that modern AA makes things quite dangerous for modern air units to operate.
Modern Airforce would wipe WW2 airforce like it was nothing. They wouldn’t even see the F-35 or out maneuver their missiles. Remember they had no plane based radar, all visual, they wouldn’t even know they were already dead.
Modern AA could hinder modern Airforce but the WW2 AF will eventually have to run Sorties into enemy territory or they are just patrolling above their own forces not doing a whole lot. There is a reason modern doctrine starts with establishing air superiority.
There is nothing modern in airforce in Ukraine in either side
Hey, Russia had an Su-57 and an S-70! …I mean, they had to get the fighter to shoot the UAV down, but still, they were there!
Yeah, but it’s not in use in Ukraine (like it would work or make any difference lol, pretty much like the Armata tank). Nothing either side is using was developed in 21st century. Late 20th at most.
F-117 (which is still 20th century but more advanced than cold war era stuff they are using now) and F-35 would shred any AA, in my armchair general opinion of course.
I would argue drones are quite a modern addition to air forces.
Drones are army, they’re just a fancy grenade/pair of binoculars, when you think about it. Or maybe a missile.
The ones they have been using that fly for dozens or hundreds of kilometers aren’t really just grenade or binocular levels of equipment.
Neither are ATACMs. They aren’t air force though.
I mean by the fucked up definitions in the US boats, planes and ground troops exist in all branches of the military but if you go by actual technology anything flying for more than a ballistic ground-powered throw (like artillery would have at most) should absolutely be considered part of the air forces.
Yes BUT! The drones they are currently using aren’t really an air force. If they’d be using Reapers and the like yeah, but BabaYaga is not really an air force. I guess we are a bit splitting the hair though here, we could nitpick forever!
Would probably still be enough to give some WW2 troops a lot of trouble.
There are hundreds of primitive suicide planes made of plywood and cardboard that fly every day and do damage on both sides. You can’t get more ww2 than that and ecomonically impossible to use modern aa against them, one missile costs more than a hundred probably. There is nothing modern about this war.
Aren’t those planes brought up to the air by actual planes? If modern planes have air dominance, then those plywood planes had better have a functioning plywood engine because there won’t be anything else to get them skybound.
I wanna say right but methinks left would be more fun
