Would the US/allies have won WW2 if they had to fight by today's US/Iraq Rules of Engagement?

Answer 1

It's doubt full because the enemy did not fight by any rules. In time of war the only rule should be to destroy the enemy at all costs until they surrender.

Answer 2

No, even though you are talking about two different kinds of war, I'll go with it.
In World War 2, if the allies followed today's counter terrorism rules of war, they would have gotten massacred, more so than they did. The rules basically say do not fire unless fired upon, but if you have a bunch of armed Germans walking around and you are in a perfect position to ambush them, you would have to give up the oppurtunity because of the rules. The Germans would have seen this and taken an immediate advantage of it.
Now, this is irrelevant because there was an open declaration of war on Nazi Germany, and there are different rules for nation to nation conflicts. We are not fighting a nation right now, so the rules were created to protect the civilians involved in the conflict, so they are not killed without just cause. 'Course that is still flawed, because they carry weapons around and you are not allowed to shoot them unless they shoot you, which will only happen when you have your back turned.
There should not be rules in war. Only for the POWs, other than that, it should all be fair game.

Answer 3

Not even close.

Dresden? War crime. Pretty much all of the allied bombing campaign, both in Europe and Japan? War crime.

Use of not one, but TWO nuclear weapons? War crimes, because we used them both first.

Indriscriminant weapons use? Fairly widespread during WW2.

Even the media coverage as it is now would have demoralized the nation. Take the D-Day invasion. American losses were 1465 dead, 3184 wounded, 1928 missing and 26 captured. I would like to remind everyone that that was just the D-Day invasion, just in Europe. There were other American deaths in Asia that were not at all related to the D-Day invasion. So over 3000 dead, because let's face it, missing, never found? Most likely NOT on a hiking trip to the Swiss alps to disappear from the war. More than likely died and just plain gone.

If this country had the same mindset then as it does now, the invasion would have never happened because the politicians would have been harping about the loss of American lives on foreign soil, and how we just need to negocitate with Hitler.

Answer 4

Quite possibly not. The New York Times would have been printing our troop movements and battle plans. Ike would have spent the entire war in front of a Senate committee. Patton would have been relieved...not for slapping a soldier, but for winning too many battles. The 101st Airborne would have been abandoned at Bastogne rather than resupplied, as it would have given the left an additional opportunity to declare the war lost. And the bomb?? Forget it. The left would have forced American troops to invade Japan so it could gleefully report the body count each day.

Answer 5

I think you are missing the point, WW2 and Iraq are two very different conflicts. In WW2 you had a clear enemy, the German army who invaded and occupied countries. In this conflict the enemy is a group that had no uniform, no real distinction from civilians and as an occupation force, its best to lead by example and adhear to the Rules of Engagement as best as possible

Answer 6

They called them the greatest generation....Were they? Well if you get personal yes I think both my grandfathers were great and what they fought for was right....
Now everything is blurred, no one wants to help us in Iraq and we are on our own for the most part. This is certainly not WW2 and times have changed. What do we do now, well
your feelings aren't any better or worse than mine...but I hope we make the right move because we are playing with fire and we better make the right move.....Our military is very stretched and with no draft it's a very different war...

Answer 7

Lemme see now, we had to fight an organized enemy that had Tigers, Nebelwulfers (sp), artillery and mortars and organized into divisions. We couldn't have won by leaving our air support and heavy equipment behind. Terrorists and insurgents are not the same....therefore by definition the rules of engagement would be different.....sorry.

Answer 8

NO, wars today are are ran by polatitons,for there on greedy reasons. A presiden't who b y passed
coungress to start a war.
W W 2 was smart people working together.
IN the lraq war,it.s a teorrist war,with no front lines and uniforms,
as long as there's one terriost.the war will go on.

Answer 9

two different wars world war 2 was a war of bullets more soldiers died by bullets being shot at them by someone they could see then by someone running up and digging a hole when no one is looking and putting a bomb in the ground so you trip it and die the roe isnt very different at all its just in this war its harder to tell who is against and who isnt

Answer 10

1. The ROE's weren't that different.
2. It's dangerous to compare second- and fourth-generation war. They're completely different, and they have to have completely different approaches, or you're going to get your rear end whipped while you're trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.