[AlexanderHowl]

Infantry is not key to winning wars at TL8. Air superiority is key to winning wars at TL8. You can see that it the last seventy years of US military conflicts. In conflicts where the USA attempted to control territory with infantry (Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.), they lost or stalemated after years of being bogged down (the US is still in South Korea. In conflicts where the USA used air superiority to cause the submission of their enemies (the First Gulf War, Bosnia, Kosovo, etc.), the US was able to declare victory and pretty much handed things over to the UN to clean up.

The error in modern military thinking is believing any infantry beyond snipers matter at TL8. At best, infantry can help the UN organize the clean up following the bombing runs of the USA and USN. At worst, infantry ends up being pack mules to take questionable objectives, using outdated tactics and inferior equipment, that the unbroken enemy will take back next year.

Of course, snipers are the exception. A ten person squad, divided into two sniper teams (flanker, sniper, spotter, and team leader) and a command element (communicator and squad leader) can cleanly engage two targets at a time, meaning that they can kill enemies without much risk to bystanders (unlike air superiority). A sniper team can kill two targets a day without difficulty and, sense they are only expending two bullets, they are vast more efficient than normal infantry (which expended 1 million bullets per enemy killed in Iraq and Afghanistan by some estimates and killed or wounded hundreds of bystanders per enemy killed). It makes you wonder why any military bothers with standard infantry.