What military force was the most efficient ever?

[Gim]

Romans or Alexander's. Mongols had a great deal of resistance in their Eastern fronts.

No matter how much you want it to be true, the Koreans didn't resist the Mongols effectively.

They got looted several times, and then became a vassal state.

It was still a Pyrrhic victory for the Mongols. Korea resisted for some period of time.

[The Tungsten Horde (Ancient)]

No matter how much you want it to be true, the Koreans didn't resist the Mongols effectively.

They got looted several times, and then became a vassal state.

It was still a Pyrrhic victory for the Mongols. Korea resisted for some period of time.

No. It wasn't.

The Mongols invaded the country, demolished the local military, and made off with everything of value. Several times. Which was exactly what they came to do. Before the Koreans had had enough and started paying tribute to keep from getting looted all the time.

Your delusional view of Korean history is delusional.

[Gim]

No. It wasn't.

The Mongols invaded the country, demolished the local military, and made off with everything of value. Several times. Which was exactly what they came to do. Before the Koreans had had enough and started paying tribute to keep from getting looted all the time.

Your delusional view of Korean history is delusional.

Elements of the Mongol army reached as far as Chungju in the central Korean peninsula; however, their advance was halted by a slave army led by Ji Gwang-su where his army fought to the death.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongol_invasions_of_Korea

In 1232, Choe U, against the pleas of both King Kojong and many of his senior civil officials, ordered the Royal Court and most of Gaesong's population to be moved from Songdo to Ganghwa Island in the Bay of Gyeonggi, and started the construction of significant defenses to prepare for the Mongol threat. Choe U exploited the Mongols' primary weakness, fear of the sea.

The Mongol army was led by a traitor from Pyongyang called Hong Bok-won and the Mongols occupied much of northern Korea. Although they reached parts of the southern peninsula as well, the Mongols failed to capture Ganghwa Island, which was only a few miles from shore, and were repelled in Gwangju. The Mongol general there, Sartai (撒禮塔), was killed by the monk Kim Yun-hu (김윤후) amidst strong civilian resistance at the Battle of Cheoin near Yongin, forcing the Mongols to withdraw again.

Goryeo won several victories but the Goryeo military and Righteous armies could not withstand the waves of invasions.

Instead of giving me unsubstantiated conjecture, I think it is best to look into sources. The quotes aforementioned show that there was not an insignificant buffer, causing Mongols to launch six campaigns before defeating them. Mongols had the army to destroy the Goryeo government, yet they could not even reach them, because they could not cross the sea. Therefore, my claim that Mongols winning a Pyrrhic victory stands.

[Imperializt Russia]

No force prior to mechanisation can reasonably considered more efficient than any force that came after mechanisation.

I'd argue that's an extremely bad arguement to make. No one can dispute the power of Rome's legions, the Mongol hordes, Napoleon's forces, etc.

And compared to mechanised forces, they are so hilariously inefficient that I can barely put it into words.

[Imperium Sidhicum]

I'd argue that's an extremely bad arguement to make. No one can dispute the power of Rome's legions, the Mongol hordes, Napoleon's forces, etc.

And compared to mechanised forces, they are so hilariously inefficient that I can barely put it into words.

Comparing pre- and post-industrial military forces is like comparing a tractor to a sports car. Not because one would be less efficient than the other, but because both vehicles are made to do completely different things at different speeds. To make an accurate assessment of each vehicle's efficiency, you should compare it to other vehicles of the same type rather than an entirely different vehicle class.

For example, the Great War-era British Army that we discussed earlier may be ludicrously inefficient by modern standards, back in the day it was as good as anything else out in the field. Hence, it's efficiency must be judged in context of it's time period.

Mechanization also does not necessarily improve military efficiency. In certain environments, it is useless or even counter-productive. There is, for example, no sense in using a heavily-mechanized force in a mountain or urban setting.

---

Military efficiency is ultimately about how effectively you use your available assets, measured by how greatly you reduce the enemy's ability to fight while preserving your own assets. A properly-utilized outfit of guerillas with nothing but small arms can produce greater reduction of that ability than an armored brigade or a wing of strategic bombers.

[Naushantiya]

Chandragupta's army against the Nandas

[Internet Freedom Republic]

I hate to give credit to Hitler but most likely the German Army during the blitzkrieg. Their soldiers were always kept high on heroin and thus soldiers, pilots, and tank crews were able to stay awake for days on end.

[Imperializt Russia]

Mechanization also does not necessarily improve military efficiency. In certain environments, it is useless or even counter-productive. There is, for example, no sense in using a heavily-mechanized force in a mountain or urban setting.

---

Military efficiency is ultimately about how effectively you use your available assets, measured by how greatly you reduce the enemy's ability to fight while preserving your own assets. A properly-utilized outfit of guerillas with nothing but small arms can produce greater reduction of that ability than an armored brigade or a wing of strategic bombers.

...
No. To both statements.

Militaries are inherently inefficient bodies. Standard measures of efficiency aren't valid. Large-scale deception operations are exceedingly "inefficient" in themselves as operations because their entire purpose is to not achieve anything. Their effect however is huge.
On a military level, guerilla outfits are not efficient. For someone complaining that "they should be judged to their era", surely too, they must be judged to their opponent. Which would undo your example.
Never before now, this present moment, has a military been able to produce a greater weight of fire upon its opponent, more rapidly, and better-co-ordinated (whilst also disrupting the ability of the enemy to do likewise), than it does now. The kill/death ratio of a military is not a measure of its efficiency because a military's goal is not "shoot the bad guys until further notice". Its goal is to win a conflict and provide a favourable political situation for its state.

[Tule]

Efficient how? In terms of resources?

I'd say Iran, Finland, Israel, Apartheid-era South Africa, Former Rhodesia and other countries under threat of invasion while having limited resources.

[Imperium Sidhicum]

Mechanization also does not necessarily improve military efficiency. In certain environments, it is useless or even counter-productive. There is, for example, no sense in using a heavily-mechanized force in a mountain or urban setting.

---

Military efficiency is ultimately about how effectively you use your available assets, measured by how greatly you reduce the enemy's ability to fight while preserving your own assets. A properly-utilized outfit of guerillas with nothing but small arms can produce greater reduction of that ability than an armored brigade or a wing of strategic bombers.

...
No. To both statements.

Militaries are inherently inefficient bodies. Standard measures of efficiency aren't valid. Large-scale deception operations are exceedingly "inefficient" in themselves as operations because their entire purpose is to not achieve anything. Their effect however is huge.
On a military level, guerilla outfits are not efficient. For someone complaining that "they should be judged to their era", surely too, they must be judged to their opponent. Which would undo your example.
Never before now, this present moment, has a military been able to produce a greater weight of fire upon its opponent, more rapidly, and better-co-ordinated (whilst also disrupting the ability of the enemy to do likewise), than it does now. The kill/death ratio of a military is not a measure of its efficiency because a military's goal is not "shoot the bad guys until further notice". Its goal is to win a conflict and provide a favourable political situation for its state.

Kill/death ratio is merely an aspect of reducing enemy fighting capability while preserving one's own assets, as you yourself already stated. This principle of asset diminishment/protection extends way beyond direct combat activities which result in casualties and are only a part of warfare (and not the most significant, if perhaps the most obvious, at that).

Industrial resources, for example, are also an asset that wins wars. An efficient military will spend resources allocated to it's use by producing cost-effective equipment faster, cheaper and in larger amounts than the enemy, forcing the enemy to expend extra resources simply to try and catch up. Industrial warfare can win wars without a shot being fired - an example is the NATO victory in the Cold War. The economies of the NATO states were far more efficient and better organized than those of the Warsaw Pact states, a fact that did not elude notice of NATO strategists. All those ICBMs, submarines, supercarriers, tanks and whatnot were not constructed just to be thrown at the enemy in the event of an open conflict - they were built for the purpose of forcing the enemy to expend his resources building something to counter them, requiring more and more maintenance and leaving less and less resources available for consumer goods, the availability of which would influence the morale and support of the civilian populace. Ultimately, the poorly-organized and mismanaged Warsaw Pact economies could not cope with the strain that the ever-increasing military demands would put on them, leading to civil unrest and collapse.

Thus, NATO strategists attacked both the economic and psychological assets of their enemy without reducing the world to an irradiated wasteland, thus protecting their own.

Morale is likewise a strategic asset that can be attacked and protected. Americans were tactically victorious in all major engagements of the Vietnam War, yet they were ultimately forced to withdraw from the region because of plummeting public support, thus effectively being defeated in the conflict, defeat entailing North Vietnam succeeding in it's objective of driving the Americans out of the war and conquering South Vietnam. The North Vietnamese leaders, fully aware that their direct military assets could not yield them a direct military victory over United States, instead elected to draw out the war and make it a festering sore in the side of America, non-threatening in itself but nonetheless painful, irritating and demanding constant attention. As a steady stream of American boys would begin to arrive home in coffins with no measurable results or end of conflict in sight, the civilian morale and public opinion would begin to plummet, civil unrest and ever-increasing expenditure of resources for no tangible gain eventually forcing United States to withdraw from the war. The will to fight is perhaps the most important asset of warfare, and Americans failed to protect theirs, resulting in their defeat.

For these reasons, my previous example about a guerilla force being more effective than a strategic bomber wing if utilized properly holds true, as Americans failed to learn in Vietnam, and still seem to have failed to in Afghanistan and Iraq.

During operations Arc Light and Rolling Thunder, US forces expended tens of thousands of expensive bombs, millions of liters of valuable fuel, lost a number of expensive hi-tech combat aircraft, and yet accomplished little to reduce North Vietnamese fighting ability. The jungles were still teeming with VC guerillas, American soldiers were still getting killed, and the civvies back home were still growing ever more restless. The Vietnamese guerillas won simply by continuing to exist and being a pain in the American backside. They did not capture any major US stronghold. They did not blast the US air forces out of the sky. They sure as hell did not demolish any industrial US city. And yet they prevailed simply by forcing the enemy to expend his assets while retaining their own.

---

Military efficiency cannot really be viewed separately from economic, scientific and media efficiency these days, because all of those things are inseparable parts of modern warfare and should be evaluated as whole when examining the efficiency of a particular fighting force within a given conflict. These things mattered to a lesser degree in times when wars were little more than two organized mobs duking it out with whatever weapons they were able to afford, but they still did matter, as Sun Tzu already noted 2000 years ago.

[Glorious Freedonia]

mongols

[Gim]

mongols

Only on land, though, not on water.

[Salus Maior]

The Hellenic Macedonian Army (which, by the way, was the first truly professional army in history), formed by Phillip II and then used by his son Alexander to conquer the world's first real superpower, Persia, without ONE defeat (at least when led by Alexander).

I'd say that's pretty efficient. For a modern efficient force, I'd say Israel.

[Post War America]

The Hellenic Macedonian Army (which, by the way, was the first truly professional army in history), formed by Phillip II and then used by his son Alexander to conquer the world's first real superpower, Persia, without ONE defeat (at least when led by Alexander).

I'd say that's pretty efficient. For a modern efficient force, I'd say Israel.

The major problem with that line of thinking though is that the entire Macedonian Empire basically imploded the moment Alexander died. It may have been effective at conquest but it was highly ineffective at actually maintaining the empire, which is kind of important.

[Mashalgd]

The Hellenic Macedonian Army (which, by the way, was the first truly professional army in history), formed by Phillip II and then used by his son Alexander to conquer the world's first real superpower, Persia, without ONE defeat (at least when led by Alexander).

I'd say that's pretty efficient. For a modern efficient force, I'd say Israel.

The major problem with that line of thinking though is that the entire Macedonian Empire basically imploded the moment Alexander died. It may have been effective at conquest but it was highly ineffective at actually maintaining the empire, which is kind of important.

Good point.

[Praetorianus]

MY BOYS THE ROMANS AND GREEKS.

[Mashalgd]

MY BOYS THE ROMANS AND GREEKS.

I prefer the Greeks although the Romans would annihilate them. No one has mentioned the Spartans?

[Visegradian Poland]

Hussars and Mongols. Hussars could defeat enemies that outnumbered them 3 to 200 and the Mongols had a huge empire for their time.

[Tevehas]

4 French soldiers in a shed ended up killing like 500 italians during WW2 during the invasion of france

[Alvecia]

4 French soldiers in a shed ended up killing like 500 italians during WW2 during the invasion of france

There's a point. Should the effective use of terrain be considered in the efficiency calulation. On one hand, they don't exactly have control over it. On the other hand, it takes skill to use it to it's best advantage.

[Post War America]

MY BOYS THE ROMANS AND GREEKS.

I prefer the Greeks although the Romans would annihilate them. No one has mentioned the Spartans?

There's a good reason for nobody mentioning the Spartans. As a full military force they were actually terribly ineffective. Their training and tactics made them really good at fighting as a phalanx which is all well and good when your opponents are also fighting in a Phalanx, and the combat is those Phalanxes push against each other until one gives up and goes home. But they got completely dismantled when fighting against a combined arms force (like Phillip and Alexander's Macedonian Army). Even within their niche the Spartans were highly overrated only winning a few wars, and generally only when other extenuating circumstances came to play in their favor. Generally Spartans were good for suppressing their slave revolts and occasional wars with the surrounding city states.

[Hoyteca]

MY BOYS THE ROMANS AND GREEKS.

I prefer the Greeks although the Romans would annihilate them. No one has mentioned the Spartans?

The Spartans suffered from crippling overspecialization. Their entire culture was built around training only one type of soldier (heavy infantry). They had to rely on slaves to do things other city-states used citizens for. They suffered from frequent (even for the time) slave revolts as a result, limiting their ability to fight other city-states. Most other states of the time had citizens take care of agriculture and other civilian tasks, light infantry to protect their heavy infantry's flanks and rear, as well as cavalry and archers, both of which the Spartans considered too cowardly. Because they were too stubborn to train their men to be anything other than heavy infantry, the Spartans were doomed from the start.

For my list, I'd add the early-WWI German army. They were among the first to make good use of heavy artillery, machine gun nests, and bunkers. While the Allied trenches of the time were simple ditches, the Germans devised complex trench systems with over-lapping machine gun nests (two or more machine guns capable of firing into the same area) to wipe out charging infantry and concrete bunkers to protect defenders from enemy artillery barrages. Their only real fatal flaw was their choice of allies. Had the Austrian-Hungarians not allowed the Italians to open up a new front (and not required the Germans to save their butts against the Russians), Germany might not have lost so badly. What also might have helped was not invading Belgium, thereby bring the British into the war.

[Yuketobaniac unions]

In more modern opinion id'e say Nazi germany then America

[Havenburgh]

If we are talking effiency, I would have to say the Mongols man.

[Gim]

If we are talking effiency, I would have to say the Mongols man.

In terms of territory, yes, but, in terms of casualties, Joseon Navy.