WARGAMES: Israel VS Indonesia

[T51R]

Two nations with comparable military might, with very different geographical strategies and specialties go at it to find out who gets closer to the top 10 on the Global Firepower Index! Well, no, actually, everyone just played too much Mortal Kombat X and got too motivated...

Tale of the tape: http://www.globalfirepower.com/count...Submit=COMPARE

NO TREATIES! Which means, no help; both nations are limited to what they have in active service, and what they can draw on in terms of reserves.

Arena altered so that no other nations exist, but geography remains the same.

Who gains, or retains #11 on the Global Firepower Index, and the chance to break into the Top 10 most powerful nations in the world?

[Lord Falcon]

Israel's military has actually been involved in plenty of combat, and trains to fight very real existential threats to its nation. Nobody particularly wants to conquer Indonesia.

Israel also has a far more advanced military. Indonesia's not a third world country, but it's not going to stand up to a country that gets most of America's top of the line stuff.

Indonesia does have a much bigger overall economy, but it's not organized the way Israel's is and its GDP per capita is much lower. It wouldn't be able to just industrialize for war the way Israel's would be able to.

Indonesia's big edge is its population. But in a war of annihilation, force multipliers beat attrition.

[StupidMoniker]

Israel also has nukes and the ability to deliver them, which makes everything else moot.

[Hiromi]

Given they have over 6 times the number of fighter aircraft(total air superiority), 9 times the number of main battle tanks, and lopsided advantages in most advanced categories, Nukes aren't really necessary. They may be heavily outnumbered personnel wise, but they have such an advantage in the force multiplying categories it doesn't matter.

[Endless_Legend]

Indonesia's big edge is its population. But in a war of annihilation, force multipliers beat attrition.

Not really true. Well, mostly not true. The DoD and Pentagon really love their force multipliers these days, but they're mostly selling us vapor: The United States basically always has the advantage of both force-multipliers and also superior numbers whenever it enters in any engagement.
They can tell us all about how our superior tech and force multipliers won this or that engagement, but they always neglect to mention that we also fired a dozen times as many missiles as the enemy, and had three times the manpower.

It *is* true in cases where one side is vastly more incompetent than the other. Israel's military is way, way more competent than Indonesia's. So their force multipliers will win the day for a while.

however, force multipliers win you some battles, but don't win you wars. Israel could defeat Indonesia in conventional war and destroy it's command structure but they don't have the numbers to pacify the country, especially give that Indonesia's core military philosophy includes last-resort guerilla/symmetric warfare.

If you can't occupy the country, you haven't won. Israel doesn't have enough nukes to go for a scorched-earth victory, either, and doesn't have the ballistic missiles to delivery them that far.

[Hiromi]

Occupying the opposing country is not listed as an objective here, so it's moot, destroying Indonesia's ability to wage war should be more than sufficient and fairly easy for a modern military like Isreal. Not to mention Indonesia's a chain of Islands, destroying it's shipping, military and civilian, and other large food production areas means it's large population would quickly start to starve(and given the volatile powder keg it's population is likely descend into civil war)

[Lord Falcon]

Not really true. Well, mostly not true. The DoD and Pentagon really love their force multipliers these days, but they're mostly selling us vapor: The United States basically always has the advantage of both force-multipliers and also superior numbers whenever it enters in any engagement.
They can tell us all about how our superior tech and force multipliers won this or that engagement, but they always neglect to mention that we also fired a dozen times as many missiles as the enemy, and had three times the manpower.

It *is* true in cases where one side is vastly more incompetent than the other. Israel's military is way, way more competent than Indonesia's. So their force multipliers will win the day for a while.

however, force multipliers win you some battles, but don't win you wars. Israel could defeat Indonesia in conventional war and destroy it's command structure but they don't have the numbers to pacify the country, especially give that Indonesia's core military philosophy includes last-resort guerilla/symmetric warfare.

If you can't occupy the country, you haven't won. Israel doesn't have enough nukes to go for a scorched-earth victory, either, and doesn't have the ballistic missiles to delivery them that far.

Since the OP said no treaties, I'm taking that to mean this war keeps going until one side runs out of people. I am treating the entire enemy nation as their military force, rather than their military force divorced from its civilian population.

In an occupation scenario, then yes Indonesia would be able to wear Israel down with guerilla tactics.

But if Israel isn't remotely worried about civilian casualties and is looking to wipe out every last Indonesian, then force multipliers will continue to remain the decisive factor until the Indonesians don't have the numbers to matter anymore.

In modern wars, it tends to be the case that the side with the force multipliers can hit the enemy from way superior range, and have the mobility to almost always be locally superior in large battles. So it's no accident if the winning side uses more ammunition than the side that couldn't hit the enemy, or in some cases even see the enemy.

[Totoro Man]

Not really true. Well, mostly not true. The DoD and Pentagon really love their force multipliers these days, but they're mostly selling us vapor: The United States basically always has the advantage of both force-multipliers and also superior numbers whenever it enters in any engagement.
They can tell us all about how our superior tech and force multipliers won this or that engagement, but they always neglect to mention that we also fired a dozen times as many missiles as the enemy, and had three times the manpower.

It *is* true in cases where one side is vastly more incompetent than the other. Israel's military is way, way more competent than Indonesia's. So their force multipliers will win the day for a while.

however, force multipliers win you some battles, but don't win you wars. Israel could defeat Indonesia in conventional war and destroy it's command structure but they don't have the numbers to pacify the country, especially give that Indonesia's core military philosophy includes last-resort guerilla/symmetric warfare.

If you can't occupy the country, you haven't won. Israel doesn't have enough nukes to go for a scorched-earth victory, either, and doesn't have the ballistic missiles to delivery them that far.

I don't really hold that against them, though. in principle an attacking invasion force should try to gain numerical superiority for local operations. in each major successful amphibious assault in WW2 I can remember the invasion force always had at least a three-to-one advantage when attacking. usually that number was closer to five-to-one in favor of the attacker. they also enjoyed lots of air and artillery support.

based on the OP it looks like the only forces allowed are current active and reserve forces... so that means that Indonesia's larger population wouldn't be of any use for the sake of this rumble (which is kinda too bad, since there's no way Israel would lose the initial scenario!) since everybody in Israel is required to serve in the military it means that they actually have a numerical advantage for this rumble.

removing all other nations from the scenario also hurts Indonesia more since trade is a huge part of it's national economy. the lack of trade hurts Israel as well - but the way the rumble is set up it actually nullifies Indonesia's two biggest advantages (larger population, larger birth rate, larger opportunities to gain resources via international trade).

I think Hiromi is right - Israel could spam nukes, follow that up with airstrikes, and cripple Indonesia's ability to make war pretty quickly. after that, if they felt the need, they could move in ground forces to take over pivotal oil producting regions


another problem is that the OP insisted on no treaties. the idea of total war proceeding until one nation is destroyed or occupied is actually not how most wars end up. and depending on how broadly you define 'treaty' it even denies one side the opportunity to offer up a conditional surrender.


I see it playing out in much the same way as Russia vs Germany from 1939 to 1940. the Russians had larger potential numbers but lacked the command & control, logistics, and training to do more than slow the Germans down. Indonesia simply doesn't have what it takes. Israel has more artillery, tanks, aircraft, and combined arms experience. Indonesia won't go down without a fight... but their armed forces are essentially geared to counter-insurgency and policing duties. they'll suffer a crippling and humiliating defeat en mass early on, and then have to concede territory and draw Israel into a battle of attrition (kinda like Nationalist China vs Imperial Japan). Indonesia simply can't win with the resources described in the OP.

[Endless_Legend]

Ok, this changes things. I was not aware:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerich...e)#Jericho_III

Israel is estimate to have between 80 to 400 warheads, mostly in the 50 to 100 kiloton range. So, win by nukespam it is.

Aside from that, though, in a conventional war, there's no way that Israel could win the war. They just don't have enough personnel, planes, ships, or vehicles. Like I've been saying, Force Multipliers are sort of a vapor dream that the pentagon has been selling us. The reason we kicked ass in every open engagement in Iraq is not, at least in infantry engagements (which is how you defeat a country, ultimately, and occupy it's cities and hold it's land) force multipliers, but because the United States Marines and the United State Army Infantry are the best trained infantry fighting force in the world. That, and we pretty much made sure to enter engagements with massive numbers on our sides.

(force multipliers won us the few conventional armor engagements in the initial invasion of Iraq quite handily, though. Google "Thunder Run" some time.)

Israel just can't do it.

Let's also not forget that both countries are having to literally project power around two continents. What little Navy they both have would have to steam around Asia *and* Africa to project any conventional power. Indonesia's Navy is bigger, much bigger, so they'd actually be able to project *first*. i don't doubt that Israel could soundly defeat any number of task forces they might send, though.

But they couldn't win the long war, conventionally, no matter their tech. There are just too many people and too much land on the other side. Long-term, there is no conventional victory for Israel, no matter how many times they roll Merkevas into Jakarta square and declare victory. They couldn't couldn't hold onto it, because they don't have the men, machines, or resources.

Also, the "everybody is in the IDF" thing is way less impressive in reality than it sounds. Every adult has been through an abbreviated basic training and done 2 years of reservist duty, sure. So has every adult in France and Germany. Israel is not the Jewish Sparta that it was in the 50s, and hasn't been for many decades.

[Lord Falcon]

Indonesia isn't very big actually. It's main advantage is being an archipelago.

And yeah, force multipliers work better when you're in a target rich environment. If everybody in Indonesia is a target, they'll do the job. Israel would be able to isolate each island and bring their full force to bear to annihilate the population before moving onto the next one.

[Endless_Legend]

Indonesia isn't very big actually. It's main advantage is being an archipelago.

Indonesia's population is 250 million. That's 3/4 that of the United States. It's not a small country. It has 1.9 million square kilometers of land.

Israel's population is 8 million. It has 22 thousand square kilometers of land.

And yeah, force multipliers work better when you're in a target rich environment. If everybody in Indonesia is a target, they'll do the job..

Not really. Unless you're talking about the nuclear option, which is a curbstomp since Indonesia doesn't even *have* nukes, while Israel has at least 80, and possibly as many as 400, along with ICBMs to deliver them anywhere in the world. Curbstomps aren't allowed on this board, so I'm assuming that going nuclear is ruled out.

"force multipliers" won't win an extended ground war against a nation that size, especially when Israel only has a few LHSes. How is it even going to take the capital? You can't just stuff a bunch of Merkavas onto a ship and expect them to just handle everything. You might roll them into the downtown square, but you will not control the country.

Indonesia's military isn't one of those laughable arab armies, btw. They're ranked 12th according to GlobalFirepower, so they're not a joke. Israel's is 11th, so they're only one place above in overall readiness. I think I've said that Israel could win all the initial battles pretty handily, but can't win the war, and that still holds true.

To quote Yamamoto: "In the first six to twelve months of a war with ..." "...I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success."
Also: "The fiercest serpent may be overcome by a swarm of ants."

This is pretty much the state of affairs that will occur with Irsael in any kind of protracted conventional war with Indonesia. It simply does not have the resource reserves, the manpower, or the men to win. If you think just taking the capital and a couple of major cities briefly counts as "victory", you're as deluded as Donald Rumsfeld was in 2003.

[The Drunkard Kid]

Nobody particularly wants to conquer Indonesia.

Speak for yourself.

They know what they did.

[Melab]

Israel allowed to use its 300+ supposed-to-be-secret nuclear missiles?

[Captain Smith]

Unless the arena has full scale logistics supply trains - everyone runs out of high weaponry fairly quickly and then what? Sailing around each other with small arms. Israel has nowhere near the number of soldiers to occupy and rule Indonesia. So after some nukes and air strikes - what then?

Nor do the Israelis (as mentioned before) have the shipping to get anywhere in real numbers.

[Lord Falcon]

Indonesia's population is 250 million. That's 3/4 that of the United States. It's not a small country. It has 1.9 million square kilometers of land.

Israel's population is 8 million. It has 22 thousand square kilometers of land.


Not really. Unless you're talking about the nuclear option, which is a curbstomp since Indonesia doesn't even *have* nukes, while Israel has at least 80, and possibly as many as 400, along with ICBMs to deliver them anywhere in the world. Curbstomps aren't allowed on this board, so I'm assuming that going nuclear is ruled out.

"force multipliers" won't win an extended ground war against a nation that size, especially when Israel only has a few LHSes. How is it even going to take the capital? You can't just stuff a bunch of Merkavas onto a ship and expect them to just handle everything. You might roll them into the downtown square, but you will not control the country.

Indonesia's military isn't one of those laughable arab armies, btw. They're ranked 12th according to GlobalFirepower, so they're not a joke. Israel's is 11th, so they're only one place above in overall readiness. I think I've said that Israel could win all the initial battles pretty handily, but can't win the war, and that still holds true.

To quote Yamamoto: "In the first six to twelve months of a war with ..." "...I will run wild and win victory upon victory. But then, if the war continues after that, I have no expectation of success."
Also: "The fiercest serpent may be overcome by a swarm of ants."

This is pretty much the state of affairs that will occur with Irsael in any kind of protracted conventional war with Indonesia. It simply does not have the resource reserves, the manpower, or the men to win. If you think just taking the capital and a couple of major cities briefly counts as "victory", you're as deluded as Donald Rumsfeld was in 2003.

Israel's military doesn't need to sit around in civilian areas waiting for a legitimate target the way they would need to in a normal war. Adopting a tactic of scorching everything that isn't a high value strategic resource (like factories and oil), force multipliers become insanely more valuable than they already are. Indonesia is an archipelago that's going to lose the naval and air war pretty handily, leaving them unable to project their forces. Israel will be free to engage at their choosing, destroying all enemy production and civilian population centers. They don't actually need to take the capital.

Unless the arena has full scale logistics supply trains - everyone runs out of high weaponry fairly quickly and then what?

And then they produce more. That's what industrial bases are for. And Israel's is far more advanced, integrated and flexible.

Speak for yourself.

They know what they did.

Allow me to clarify.

No country particularly wants to conquer Indonesia.