DieselPete wrote:
MJuric wrote:
Because this country is basically one big can of whup-a$$, with most people armed to the teeth. I've always thought this to be a BS concept. Same thing for the idea that arming yourself is protection against a government taking away your rights. 90% of those "Armed" end up dropping their weapons and shooting themselves in their foot at the firing range. Few are actually use the weapons enough to be comfortable with them and even fewer have any tactical training. A person with small arms can't do anything to a tank or modern airforce...and those crazy enough to try and learn to make weapons that could we lock up :-)
To make it worse most of the people in the US are just plain soft, take away their cell phones and internet and they will gladly hand over their freedom to get them back. They wouldn't last a week "Defending" themselves.
We need a strong military for a reason...because this isn't 1776 anymore where nearly everyone was as lethal as anyone else with commonly available weapons that everyone had in their household. Take away the military and all you'd have to do is turn the lights out and the white flags would just come rolling out.
~Matt
Calling bullshit on all of this. It’s like you’ve never even seen Red Dawn.
Wolverines!!!!
It's like none of you have ever studied true insurgency or guerrilla warfare. ;-)
At the risk of turning this thread into something that's actually serious -- rather than the humorous thread it began as -- you don't need a lot of insurgents or guerrillas to constitute an effective fighting force against a larger and better-equipped (and fielded) military force. So even if 95 percent of the so-called "good old gun-owning boys" in the US turned tail and ran, and surrendered, upon invasion, you still have a million or more that won't.
The maquisards (Maquis) in France in WW2 are just one example of a very lightly supplied and manned guerrilla force. More recently, the Viet Cong (right up until they foolishly attempted the Tet Offensive) and the Taliban illustrate how even halfway organized insurgencies can give a standing, occupying military force fits. How many provinces does the Afghan government -- with the support of the US and its allies -- completely control in-country these days?
Again: classic doctrine says it usually takes around six infantrymen to dig out one insurgent, meaning 100,000 insurgents can tie up a 600,000-infantryman army (and that's not counting the six logistics and other support personnel needed to support every one infantry soldier in the field) as long as the insurgency doesn't try to overreach and, instead, consolidates its gains slowly and steadily.
Admittedly, the above ratio doesn't perfectly correlate, in my opinion, these days mainly because the state of technology has given a decided edge to the formal military organization. But anyone who's spent time in Iran, Iraq, the wider Middle East and Africa or over in Afghanistan can tell you how clever local insurgencies are, on occasion, in overcoming the technological edge enjoyed by the modern infantry soldier. Detecting night vision (and even blocking its) usage by US forces, for example, is one such technique that's been learned by insurgents in Afghanistan. The list goes on.
Generally, an insurgency can't hope to win against a national military force in a straight-up fight on the field of battle. What it's usually trying to accomplish is to act as an enervating phenomenon on the occupying military force and its civilian leadership, hoping to drain away -- over time -- its will to win and to keep the occupation going. The classic example of this is Vietnam (from both the French as well as US experience). Another good example is the Soviet experience in its own occupation of Afghanistan.
"Politics is just show business for ugly people."
