On a tactical level as opposed to a strategic level. Most small scale engagement is won by US troops as opposed to the Afghanistan militias.

Even if you take a look back at Vietnam, you should take a look at how many Vietnamese combatants are killed as opposed to American troops.

You do realise that this thread is talking about tactics and not strategy right?

 

America-Afghanistan is not the only war that has occurred in Afghanistan. The Taliban repelled the might of the Soviet Union, and regardless of how many Vietnamese died in that war, America sounded the retreat.

 

That does fit, since so much of Voldemort's power in the first war came from pure numbers, with Remus mentioning the 20 to 1 thing. That might be why so many DE's are written as incompetent, because the majority of them probably would be, in a realistic situation where new, young members are constantly being recruited and sent out to wreak havoc.

 

Jesus. Look at the thread title.

 

This seems to indicate that wizards can have armies of some sort. Dumbledore never refers to the Death Eaters as Voldemort's army, so perhaps the Grindelwald War was fought along more traditional lines.

Also, I think I read on one of the HP wiki sites that Grindelwald wanted to overthrow the statute of secrecy and enslave muggles. A much larger group of wizards probably would be needed for that to work than Voldemort's small group of Death Eaters. I think Krum talks about Grindelwald being active in several countries across continental Europe in DH, but Taure could probably correct me on that.

 

Voldemort's forces are indeed referred to as an army:

Also recall that the DA is Dumbledore's Army.

(Ironically, Voldemort did take on the Ministry with maybe about 30 Death Eaters, and won).

 

Just out of curiosity, Taure, how many times have you read canon? You seem to remember just about everything - and have fairly concrete arguments on n number of associated topics.

 

Different amounts for different books. I haven't kept a count, but it's roughly as follows:

Philosopher's Stone: 6
Chamber of Secrets: 7
Prisoner of Azkaban: 10
Goblet of Fire: 10
Order of the Phoenix: 12
Half-Blood Prince: 4
Deathly Hallows: 2

It's got to the point where I can't read them at all any more - I just know them too well. Maybe if I ever get head trauma I'll be able to enjoy reading them again.

In this case it was simply a matter of remembering Sirius saying that line in the OotP movie, opening an e-book of OotP and doing a search for the word army to make sure it was in the book too.

As for my arguments, some are the result of having discussed a lot of this stuff before (DLP recycles topics every so often when new members bring up topics that have been discussed an age before), but most I come up with on the spot.

 

Impressive.

While I, myself, have read all the books (other than DH) more than twice, I read them so long ago that I fear my knowledge of canon has been irreparably merged with fanon.

In fact, my memory of DH is so poor that the only thing I can really remember about DH are the hallows

 

The focus of the entire debate is more about tactics than strategy, in regards to how engagement between wizards and witches is conducted.


You can win achieve a tactical victory and still lose the war. On a tactical level, the US did not lose to the Vietnamese. Nor can we say today, that the US army is losing to the Taliban on a tactical level.

Only when massive amount of military aid was given to Afghanistan. Also, the vietnam was is a case where US is essentially conducting a limited warfare, where they couldn't bomb certain areas.

Military, the Afghanis and the Vietnamese didn't even come close to winning a conventional military victory.

They won a political victory it becomes too expensive for the US and the USSR to continue their military adventures in those regions.

It is ridiculous to believe that the Vietnamese even came close to threaten the survival of the United States in the Vietnam war.

The war against voldermort is a war of necessity and a war of survival for the light side. It's a war of survival for them.

 

Because My Lai was a military hideout - therefore an area they could hit without remorse.

/sarcasm

 

When people bring up wizarding group fights one would imagine they would pull of something warcraft like, two for shielding, two for attack etc.

Yet somehow, there was no real cooperation in any fight we have seen until now, other then "I've got you back if you got mine" and ganging up on a single foe with two or three friends and even then it is just everyone hurling the most lethal spells and best shields one knows at the enemy.

Well, in regards of transfiguration, I am still at a loss wheather they learn a spell which transforms an object into an animal or do they learn the specific spell which turns, lets say, a stone into a dog. Would they need another spell to turn a log into a dog? Does the spell change from dog species to dog species?

It certainly doesn't seem that way, so I would say the wizard/witch has at least to know the animal. You can't transfigure something into an animal you don't know, unless there are spells which does specific transfiguration and in that case they would have thousands of spells one has to learn to be even considered well versed, let alone a master. Doesn't seem too practical.