Vets: Most competent allies in Irag / Afganistan?

[Abraham]

We've a number of allies in the two countries.

In your experience who did you admire for their ability: Britain, Canada, Australia, Poland, Holland, the host countries fighters or ...?

Thanks!

P.S. Competence is one thing and courage another. Perhaps, some were more courageous...without necessarily being smarter?

Up to you to decide?

And thanks!

[KalashniKEV]

We've a number of allies in the two countries.

In your experience who did you admire for their ability: Britain, Canada, Australia, Poland, Holland, the host countries fighters or ...?

Thanks!

P.S. Competence is one thing and courage another. Perhaps, some were more courageous...without necessarily being smarter?

Up to you to decide?

And thanks!

This is definitely in the wrong forum, but I had additional duties as an LNO to the 341st Romanian Infantry Bn on the tail end of my last tour.

Those guys were motivated, skilled, and if they stepped out of line they were on the next think smokin'.

Most of it had to do with 2 words:

Quadruple Pay.

[TehLlama]

I'll take any/all of them. Our ally nations only send small contingents, and in each military population there is always a small proportion of determined pipe hitting warriors that will stop at nothing to be in the group that gets sent. A lot of them had a different specialty area they were skilled at, but that discussion is arguably best left for elsewhere since we're primarily talking SoF equivalent or other units with tailored specialties, but a lot of the differentiation came from what sort of funding for equipment and training they were getting, when that funding kicked in, and how densely it was spread (or how it was distributed). The other major deciding factor is how politically limited ground commanders were with their troops - if their unit leaders are sent out with strict guidelines to lose as few men as possible, that limits what they can do effectively, and most of the limitations with how ally nation forces get used tend to relate to this, and that's another thing that masks how good a lot of those units are.

[BooneGA]

Working with the Polish was a constant laugh. I guess theres that.

Polish SF was, from my point of view, the equivalent of an out of shape regular army artillery unit performing infantry tasks.

I had many Poles who were good friends, but their military command structure and operational capabilities left much to be desired.

Rick

[Eurodriver]

Spent some time with diggers while deployed and in Hawaii during two RIMPAC exercises.

They might have kangaroos on their warships but they are good to go.

Canadians seemed fat and old. But so did quite a few US Army Specialists too.

[chuckman]

Ability? Hmmm....I have to think. Looks? IDF. A lot of their women are just hot.