Military History of Formation

[Malthus]

@bob_2

Some of the most successful ever guerillas were the Spanish in the early 19th century against Napoleons soldiers.

Napoleon had made a pretty dodgy takeover of the Spanish government, but the population (driven along by the priests who feared N’s ideas about the role of religion in politics) hated the French and all they stood for. This meant that no French soldier could go anywhere without and solid escort, thus tying up thousands of troops.

N (or rather Joseph) retaliated by burning, raping shooting and all the usual terror tactics of a ruthless authority. Lemur866 said "But the problem comes when all the men in the enemy village get their weapons together and march over to your village. What are you gonna do now? Run away and harass them with guerrilla tactics? You could do that, but that means they’re in your base killing your dudes. You can’t run away from your fields and houses and women and animals and stored food and goods and let the enemy villagers do what they like. They’ll burn your fields, burn your houses, rape and/or enslave your women, capture your animals, and carry away or destroy your food and goods.

In fact, once your family is dead and your home gone, you have little left to lose and much to gain (loot etc) so you head off to the hills and join a gang of bandits who (like Robin Hood) rob from the hated French and support (and get supported by) the local population. Of course - if another power (like the English) give you gold and guns as well, you have even more chance of coming out on top.

The reason no-one would deliberately adopt this form of warfare (unless they had no choice) is that it visits untold suffering on the population - indeed, that suffering is necessary, to arouse the survivors to battle.

In contrast, the benefit of fighting with a more formal army is that the battle can be kept far away from one’s own civilians (at least, in theory), and a distinction drawn between civilians and combatants - with the rights of the former (again, in theory) respected.

[MrDibble]

@pianodave

I mean if you really want to kill somebody, do like the Viet Cong did and put booby traps in the jungles, and hide from your assailants.

I thought most of the killing by the anti-American/South side in the Vietnam War was done in pitched battles by the PNVA, not in the jungles by the VC.