Originally Posted by AussieNick

And what I'm trying to say, is that if you follow traditional war fighting doctrine then yes, your numbers do make a difference.

If you fight smart, then having low numbers (even being heavily outnumbered) isn't always a problem, and can even be an advantage.

Somehow logically that doesn't seem to fly well with me... I mean, outnumbered 3 to 1 seems more plausible, but 10 to 1 I'm not so sure of... Anyone else want to ring in on this?

2 examples spring to mind straight away.
Kapyong and Long Tan.
And being outnumbered is the way Australians have fought just about every engagement they've been in.

But anyway. I'm obviously not going to convince you otherwise ASTRAL,
so I'll take my point of view from current military doctrine and learning and military training and actual qualifications, and you can take your point of view from.... well where do you get your ideas from?




Note to those who don't know:
LONG TAN
18th August 1966.
Delta Company, 6th Battalion Royal Australian Regiment defeated and repelled the NVA 275 Regiment and the Viet Cong D445 battalion in the rubber plantation of Long Tan with no air support due to the rubber trees.
Result:
18 Australian KIA and 24 WIA.
245 Viet Cong/NVA KIA

This was a battle with 108 men against 2500. That is a ratio of 1 Australian against 23 Viet Vong.
The victory was possible thanks to high levels of discipline, brilliant fire control orders and fire discipline, brilliant drills from the soldiers on the ground, and outstanding work by the NZ FO party of 8 that were taging along.

Sourced from The Vietnam Veteran Association of Australia
http://www.vvaavic.org.au/longtan.htm

KAPYONG
On the night of 22 April 1951, Korea.
The 3rd Battalion Royal Australian Regiment.
At a cost of 32 men killed, 59 wounded and three missing (taken prisoner), the Australians had held up the Chinese 60th Division and inflicted heavy casulaties which totaled more than 500 killed alone. They were aided by NZ Artillery.

Information from the Australian War Memorial
www.awm.gov.au/encyclopedia/kapyong/index.htm

There are countless other examples.
Maryan-Sang (Korea 5-8 October 1951)
Isurava (Papua New Guinea August 1942)
Beersheba (Palestine 31 October 1917)
Westen Iraq Desert (18th May 2003)


It goes on and on and on, and that's just some Australian examples.
You can find more information on the mentioned battles at www.defence.gov.au