My point is that they're not going in empty-handed, or they're not going in to kill them, because in a fair fight Blue team wins 10/10. There's no exaggeration about the skill gap between a soldier trained to be a supernatural monster from the age of 6 vs a good soldier that got upgraded after the war. Anybody that says otherwise hasn't thought about it enough. This isn't a mindless "OG is better huehue" type deal; Frank O'Connor has established the absolute masterful skill and natural ability that the SPARTAN-IIs possess, and the Fall of Reach shows just how resourceful and skilled the SPARTAN-II candidates are. A single SPARTAN-II is capable of taking out 10 SPARTAN-IVs, per Frank. That much tells you just how one-sided the skill gap is. The only time the SPARTAN-IVs have ever been said to be on par with the SPARTAN-IIs was when the SPARTAN-IIs were still wearing Mk VI, and that was a point showing just how technologically advanced the GEN2 platform is. To top it off, that comparison only compares the physical side of them, because the SPARTAN-IIs received far more potent mechanical augmentations, and thus the SPARTAN-IVs needed the better tech in GEN2 to even compare. The experience and training side of the argument still made the SPARTAN-II in Mk VI the superior soldier regardless of the armour because intangibles make all the difference.

The early training of the SPARTAN-IIs is the biggest part of their success; the ability to acquire experience is completely dependent on the skills and instincts that were embedded during practice. John was fully capable of destroying 3 ODSTs by accident just a month after augmentations, and not just because he was super strong by that point. Yeah the experience is important, but they were beyond elite right from the get-go.