US Army v. A bunch of gun-toting rednecks

Great Debates
1

In various threads, this one as a random example, the assumption is made that the US Army would naturally trounce any popular uprising because of it’s advanced technology.

I think such assumptions are too simplistic.

Before I start, I realize that a lot of this would depend on how a conflict might start. Let’s assume that the US government has gone rogue and is trying to suppress a popular uprising.

The high tech weapons the US Army uses against foreign armies would be extremely limited in use against a force of armed US citizens.

As Joe Random put it in the linked thread:

**

To this I ask: What is the US Air Force going to use the stealth bombers for? Militant members of a popular uprising aren’t going to be located in a remote bunker in Colorado that says “I’m a rebel, please bomb me!”. They’ll live as regular citizens, largely, blending in with everyone else. What use are laser guided bombs from a stealth bomber when you’re not facing enemy military installations or army units? Are you going to call out a stealth bomber sortie every time a sniper with a hunting rifle is picking off soldiers at long range?

Are you going to make B52 runs to carpet bomb Detroit because there are a lot of suspected rebels there?

Are you going to blow up downtown Miami with a MOAB?

On the contrary, a popular uprising most likely wouldn’t engender a cohesive, organized military force that the US Army has trained, and developed technology, to fight.

They can’t risk calling down artillery in the middle of a school yard, lest they piss everyone off and have anyone loyal to the (rogue) government change their mind.

So what does that leave you? Mostly small arms. Some heavier vehicles, depending on what the nature of the conflict is. If the government wants to present the idea of a small conflict against some “terrorists” that’s not serious, they’re not going to be rolling tanks down main street.

Assuming that the entirety of the US Army (and the various national guards) foregos their sworn oath and sides with the rogue government, you have what - 150,000 riflemen? I’m estimating here - 1.2 million in the US military, fewer in the Army and Marine Corps, a small percentage being actual combat troops as opposed to support troops, and only a fair percentage of those being riflemen - others being dedicated to heavier weapon systems of dubious value in such a conflict, spread across the entire US.

On the other hand, you have 80 million gun owners - many of whom have enough weapons to spare should others wish to join in any rebellion. Let’s assume that 10% of these people decide to act against the government (which, I think is a very small number if the government truly ‘goes rogue’), and, say, a quarter of them recruit one friend. That’s 10 million people.

Not only that, but millions of them are experienced hunters. Skilled in woodcraft and marksmanship, armed with ubiquitous deadly and accurate hunting rifles, they would make a fine improvised sniping force.

US Infantry doctrine isn’t based on anything resembling being able to fight and outnumbered by several times people who have more accurate, longer ranged rifles, skilled sufficiently in woodcraft to succesfully evade often retribution, able to slowly pick away at a numerically smaller and somewhat isolated (due to the vastness of the US vs number of troops) force.

Sure, many of them would be shot and killed - but if they took a few with them, simply by attrition the US army would be quickly wiped out. The Army can’t use heavy weapons against someone who shoots a soldier on a patrol from 600 yards away and then evades them in their own back yard. Not effectively.

So we have riflemen vs riflemen. Iron sights from a relatively short ranged M16 against a long-range, accurate, scoped rifle such as the ubiquitous Remington 700.

An army under dubious morale conditions (I mean, really, how many in the army are truly going to be comfortable shooting their fellow citizens in the name of a tyranical government?) against determined fighters fighting for their freedom in their own back yards, armed with weapons ideal for such a conflict, and greatly outnumbering said army.

Such sniping tactics are often just as effective in urban areas, which are extremely hard for any organized force to fight on. If soldiers were enforcing martial law on the streets, it’s not unlikely that small patrols would take high casualties from people hiding in buildings, people that wouldn’t be easily located.

Assuming a generally sympathetic populace, it wouldn’t be hard for these people to hide. The army can’t go around killing people they merely suspect because that would turn any support for them around immeadiately. Hell, people might not need to hide - they could live a normal life 99% of the time, and take whatever action they could against the government when the opportunity arose.

And this is assuming a worst case scenario in which all of the military and national guard fully complied with a tyranical government. A much more likely scenario is that large factions of these groups would decide to fight the factions that remained loyal to the tyranical government. In this case, the military aided by millions of willing and ready citizen-soldiers is pretty much garunteed to win.

Anyway, the main point is that people assume that high technology heavy weapons would easily decide any conflict, when the reality is that because of the nature of the conflict those weapons would be nullified.

I’m not saying that citizen-soldiers would automatically win any conflict, and of course a lot depends on the exact nature of it, but I think the assumption that the army would simply trounce any armed resistance is flawed.

2

In a sense, you’re mixing apples and oranges. YES, the US Army could annihilate any rebel group that tried to establish conventional bases or open military units; NO, the rebels wouldn’t try to do that but would stick to terrorist/ guerilla tactics, but NO, the US Army wouldn’t be stuck trying to simply fight the rebels on an “infantryman vs. infantryman” level.

First, the conventional forces of the rogue government would largely be devoted to guaranteeing that the government would retain control of the infrastructure: roads, communication lines, electric power, factories, etc.

Secondly, the government would use it’s tyrannical power to maintain control over the populace by such things as impounding bank accounts, mandating nationwide ID papers, restricting travel except by permission and then through carefully controlled checkpoints, indoctrination of children in schools, etc.

Thirdly, if the government had an excess of tank crews and a shortage of infantry, they would doubtless transfer personnal to the infantry. And of course the government would vastly expand the number of anti-terrorism, special forces and secret police units.

The unpleasant truth is that a tyrannical government that had the backing of as little as one fifth of the populace could squelch any uprising. They probably couldn’t eliminate the resistance altogether, but they could keep it suppressed indefinitely.

3

C³

The Army has it and the rebels wouldn’t. Makes all the difference.

4

And I’m not talking about plastique.

5

A good place to look for the effectiveness of heavy weapons against a lightly armed guerilla force with a large body of support that faced off against the US Army is Vietnam. Heavy weapons were used to very good effect. Sniper fire from long range often did draw artillery fire in response. The US Army did fight outnumbered and inflicted casualties many times that of its own. In the end, the war of course was lost, but heavy weapons were very effective.

Quite possibly. Perhaps downtown districts of major cites wouldn’t be targeted, but again with the Vietnam experience in mind, any village in a free fire zone was presumed to be VC and a valid target. Should a rebellion grow nasty enough, such tactics would likely be used.

One thing that seems to be overlooked in the whole guerilla resistance vs. the tyrannical forced of a mad US government™ is that a guerilla resistance is only the first stage. Ultimately the guerilla force will need to be able to deploy itself as a conventional army in order to fight and defeat the now weakened government forces. Guerilla style resistance is only the first stage of a revolutionary conflict.

Oh, and in closing, as the tyrannical forces of the US government™ are normally associated with the New World Order in such scenarios, you might have to throw the forces of the UN into the mix of what a guerilla resistance in the US would have to fight.:wink:

6

Pardon my ignorance but, c3?

7

Just how many civilian sharpshooters are capable of, and willing to, “pick off” brother soldiers? There is, I understand, more to sniping than simply being a good shot.

8

Command, Control and Communication, often followed with and I for Intelligence.

Military Acronym Dictionary

9

The US Army vs. a bunch of gun-toting rednecks?

You mean the Taliban?

10

Thanks for the tip, dissonance. I was guessing it was some sort of weapon. It seems like a big assumption to state that the rebels wouldn’t have c3. Many popular revolts have from the Viet Kong back to our own American revolutionaries.

I think the deciding factor would probably be political, not technological. If the revolt consisited of a small minority, say some really wacked band of fundies, the U.S. gov’t would have little problem using the military and law enforcement to contain it. If it was a truly large scale revolt against a gov’t gone tyrannical it would stand a good chance of success, especially since, as the OP notes, soldiers might simply refuse to carry out orders on behalf of an illegitamate U.S. gov’t

11

I have a whole army’s worth of rednecks living around me and it would scare the hell out of me if they started talking in the same terms as the OP. :eek:

12

How well oprganized are our rebel? Is it a single group? Or several fractions?

Will the Michigan Militia coordinate with Revolutionary Black Panthers, the neo-Nazis, communists, and the KKK? Or can our facists divide and conquer?

Any uprising in the US would depend on mass demonstrations of the people leading to the eventurally desertion/defection of signifigant portions of the military.

13

Also, what’s the overlap between members of the military and gun owners?

14

Can you kill a few soldiers with privately-owned firearms? Absolutely. But so what? A few dead soldiers does not lead to the collapse of the military, so the evil dictatorship stays in power with no problems whatsoever.

15

The ability of the United States military to integrate firepower, troop deployments and air sorties would make any rebel communications net look like paper cups with twine strung in between them.

Consider for about ten seconds these options:

1.) Jamming

2.) Intercept

3.) Aliasing

4.) E-Bombs

Now try and tell me that a conventional militia would stand a moment’s chance.

16

Regarding C3I, while a guerilla force would find the tyrannical US Army™ able to dance circles around it in an open fight, they would likely learn very quickly not to attempt it. During the first few major encounters between the Viet Cong and the US Marines and Army, the VC attempted to fight the battle the same way that they had done when facing the ARVN only to discover that the US military could move and react much faster than the ARVN could. After this, they learned to modify their tactics to disperse faster when they needed to and to not engage US forces in standup fights.

17

The Army wouldn’t need to defeat rebels. They would just have to keep them pushed far enough underground that the government could carry on as it saw fit. Look at all your classical military-maintained governments, none of them ever squashed rebellion. The successful ones just squelched open rebellion so long as the government remained established, and generally when the leader or the military failed to keep meeting that standard the whole house of cards crashed down right away. The rule of Cromwell in England is a perfect example.

You don’t need Orwellian total domination of thought, media, and action, though it helps. You just need sufficient power to accomplish your main goals as a despot.

18

Hmm, lets see- Angry gun- toting meat eating rednecks against an experienced military with:

Seasoned troops
Discipline
Satillites
An amazing military intelligence
Infared and nightvision equipment
Tanks
Battle Helicoptors
Top of the line armor equipment (vests, shields, facemasks etc)
Money
Education (strategy, history, tactics, logistics, etc)
And so much more I could probably list about 20 or more additional benifits that a redneck army would have to have some serious connections to match up against the military.

Not to mention the other points posters have brought up. Like laigle said- Power of the people, propaganda, social conformity and the like will keep the population more in check and in fear than anything else.

19

I considered this, of course, and of course this is a case where heavy weaponry was used to good effect against insurgent forces.

However, the US military had little to no regard for the Vietnamese. Excess casualties inflicted by the use of heavy weapons wasn’t discouraged, really, and that’s far different from our scenario. The government would be very careful to keep strikes as surgical as possible as to not alienate those who have no strong feelings for either side or who side with the government.

If they disregarded this, and treated the US as another Vietnam, they would inflict heavy casualties with heavy weapons - but at the cost of turning a (hypothetical) 10% resistance rate into a 70% one.

20

Well, this is why I only assumed a small active resistance rate. There are quite a few people who I have little doubt would have no problem using lethal force against someone actively trying to kill them and/or oppress them.