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While hostile identification might be similar, I wouldn’t say we’re experiencing that scenario in Iraq. A foreign conquering power vs. a domestic tyranny. The societies and cultures are fundamentally different, too.
This is a valid point, and I realize a lot of the specifics require a scenario. But if I create one now, it’ll just be arbitrary, and we’d be debating the likeliness of that specific scenario - which detracts from my original point about high tech heavy weapons against civilians.
That many rounds might be shot in a conventional, stand up firefight - but that’s not the sort of thing we’d be seeing largely. More likely is a sniper firing one shot, or someone ambushing a small patrol firing several to a few dozen.
As for very few gun owners having more than a few boxes - well, hunter types might only keep a few boxes, but then again, they’re the ones that only need a small amount of ammo.
I have no idea what the average ammo a gun owner has is, but I know lots and lots of people who would consider having 1000 rounds as being out of ammo.
As far as rounds ‘going bad’, I have around 1000 rounds of stuff manufactured in the late 1940s that still works fine. Modern primers don’t last quite that long, but we’re still talking about a matter of decades.
Well, if one looks at the history of bloody (and often hopeless) revolts against the French, one might come to such a conclusion, leaving aside the ‘tyranical’ government thing as undefined posturing.
Yes.
Precisely.
Tools can be acquired, from the army, national guard, etc. Not meaningless, that is true, but highly secondary - the ‘arsenals’ of weekend hunters are near meaningless in the final analysis, except as they may (or not) represent a will.
Senor Beef, like I mentioned, what if all of the gun shops are suddenly closed by government fiat? Where is all of the ammunition magically going to come from? Drawing brass takes some pretty sophisticated machinery. Making reliable burn rate powder is not an easy thing. Bulk fabrication of primers is no simple matter. Nobody has stockpiles like the military. What’s more, they can commandeer all factory production and never run out.
More than anything, the military can cordon off areas and place them under siege. They have the ability to wait out anybody. A shoot and run strategy only applies when you have someplace to run to. When you are bottled up inside a perimeter and the food runs out, get out the white flag.
All of this thread is akin to the mental masturbation of our dearly departed Major Kong’s bomb legalization thread. I still maintain that C³ technology is an insurmountable advantage possessed by the military. No one here has yet provided any sort of decent explanation as to how this massive technological lead will be neutralized. Until someone does, all other discussions about ordnance and tactics are merely armchair quarterbacking.
No need to be so snoty.
Yes, a thousand rounds can be fired in a fire fight. We aren’t talking about those kind of actions. I believe most people here are talking about sniping.
I’ve got ammo that’s more than 10 years old that is perfectly fine.
Several groups of solo snipers picking off targets. They have single shot rifles, for better accuracy and such, and begin firing on troops.
First guy goes down. The seasoned troops instantly target in on the direction that the fire orginated on. Another trooper goes down. The rest fan out, surround the building/tower, etc the sniper is housed in. The troops corner the sniper, whom only has a single shot long range weapon and kill him with no problem. The thousands of rounds he has at home that he planed on using sparingly go to waste because he is dead.
OR
The first trooper goes down. The rest of the company take cover, employ their own snipers, who are much better more experienced mind you, and quickly deal with the insurgent.
Multiply this by 1000’s of times if necessary.
Or if you are talking about kiling civilians, well, yoiur not going to get more rebels that way… Your hurting your own cause. The civilians look towards the police or military to protect them, and thus build the bond between tyrannical goverment and helpless civilians.
How about: First guy goes down, other troops return fire at where sniper was before he dumped his rifle in a hidey-hole and took up the mantle of concerned citizen.
If you cause sufficient chaos that the Regime™ loses control over that area, you’ve won. Of course, it’s something of a hollow victory as far as liberty is concerned, as anarchy will reign, but we weren’t necessarily fighting for liberty. If you can totally disrupt the civilian economy, then there would be no one to pay taxes, and every product that the government didn’t make itself would be in very short supply.
It’s a philosophy that they would have to adopt – they would be attempting to topple the government. Neutrals in this case are in effect supporting the status quo, the existing government. A plan of action consisting entirely of sniper attacks is doomed to failure. Individuals and disparate small groups of people opening fire on the military would largely be committing suicide. They may take out some soldiers with them, but are very unlikely to survive the encounter. Such attacks are largely pointless militarily. The resisters would need to organize themselves into military units, conduct guerilla operations and prepare themselves for the long haul if there is to be any hope of actually overthrowing the government and not simply killing the occasional soldier. Until they can advance down the streets of DC driving the governments’ army before them, they haven’t won. The reason that resistors wouldn’t succeed unless formed into organized, disciplined units is largely the same reason why rioters are invariably dispersed by riot police even when they may outnumber the police by 10s or 100s to 1. On its face, by sheer numbers alone the rioters should win, but they pretty much never do. The fact that the police are using gas, water cannons and are dressed in riot gear is only a smaller part of the reason that they succeed. The larger reason is that every officer knows that should they get into trouble, their fellow officers will come to their aid. The rioters know that should they personally get into trouble, nobody is going to help them.
I don’t think that the US is altogether that unique in Western culture in regards to the people’s willingness to fight for their rights. The way that a tyrannical government would immediately fall apart would be if the army (or significant parts of it) itself refuses to carry out its orders and provides the resistance with an immediate, trained, disciplined and organized military force. Until fairly recently, European armies used universal conscription, a practice dating back to the French Revolution. Having the entire voting population familiar with and trained in military operations is more intimidating to a potentially tyrannical government than simply having an armed population. Switzerland is an extreme example of this, as all males conduct regular training until late middle age and keep an assault rifle in their house.
Common, how many silly examples are you going to give? Stretching the bounds of believeblity is pointless. A person not trained in sniping isn’t going to make a very good sniper. A person trained to be a sniper isn’t even going to be a good sniper. That is why the military takes those that already show talent.
Secondly, the first thing any military group is going to do when somebody is taken down by a sniper is take cover and try to prevent the sniper from escaping. I.E surround the building, return fire, etc. More than likely they will get killed in the ensuing fire. After all, civilian buildings aren’t bullet proof.
Lastly, if they do escape, the goverment has lost one man. Big deal. They could easily detain and quarrentine an entire area, send police teams to do background checks, see who owns the gun, track him down and have him arrested/executed. The guy will be found before he kills “thousands” of troops. Even if thousands of other guys are doing it as well. It isn’t rocket science. It is forensics.
Again, enough people would have to be doing this for sufficient chaos to ensue. Lots of people. One person per city is still thousands of people. There is only so many good snipers that can evade detection. Perhaps one in a thousand. That kind of training and skill would mean they are ex military, which would make identifing them and catching them even easier.
Once martial law or a police state is enforced life for those snipers becomes very difficult. Roadblocks, car searches, home searches, guns confenscated. Anybody that looks suspicious will be detained, curfew laws will no doubt be strongly enforced. Tresspassers will be dealt with harshly. Not to mention normal civilians turning you in due to fear. Even your own family members would turn you in to avoid goverment scrutiny.
Personally the whole hypothetical discussion is kinda pointless like was mentioned above. Something like this wouldn’t happen. Look at other countries. The civil war here was nothing related, and the Revolution only occured because the goverment ruling us was far away. (among others, but this was certainly a major motivator)
It takes a whole lot of crap, and extenuating circumstances for people to revolt. And a revolt HAS to be organized. Which means avoiding detection, keeping your commications unblocked and undecoded, and moving at the right targets at the right time. Chaos on the scale it would be necessary for the goverment to just lose control is so improbable it is near impossible. Especially without some sort of underground movement directing the terrorism.
Just want to stress this point: If the gun-toting rednecks are wanting to overthrow the goverment, killing civilians to cause chaos will not gain the support of the people. In fact it would cement the civilians into loving their goverment, no matter how horrid, the goverment that defeats the civilians enemies is their friend.
Now if the tyrranical goverment formed a secret group of rebels, conscripted an army and had them target the civilians to gain support, that would be a wonderful and lovely act of machivellianism. (sp?) Take out the group you formed after the civilians plea for your help, punish them greatly, while making sure any ties to the goverment will not be found out, and you suddenly have turned the goverment into something hated into something loved. Beautiful really.
Epimetheus, I dispute your assertion that a single sniper is very likely to be killed/captured for shooting at soldiers. How effective are we at killing/capturing snipers in Iraq, or Somolia? Is a sniper attack on US soldiers equivalent to signing your own death warrant? I sincerely doubt it.
I doubt that standard police procedure could be used to capture a sniper. The fact is that in most murders the killer is quite obvious. If a woman is dead, 90% of the time the killer is the boyfriend. Stranger murders…where you kill a random person for no particular reason…are usually extremely difficult to solve. If the populace is sympathetic to the shooter it will be even harder. You can’t just “cordon off” whole city blocks in a few minutes. That would take dozens of troops, who would have to be called in by radio. How long will it take them to arrive at the scene, compared to how long it will take the shooter to walk a few blocks?
And the terrorists/rednecks wouldn’t shoot civilians at random. The way to gain support is to shoot at the soldiers and skedaddle. Then when the soldiers call in airstrikes, return fire into occupied buildings, set them on fire and kill everyone nearby you are long gone. The soldiers have commited a massacre. Even if they get a few rebels they aren’t going to win any popularity contests.
Occupying armies CAN succeed at more or less total domination of a country. But they are also often defeated. How did Castro gain control over Cuba? How did the Sandinistas gain control over Nicaragua? How did the Algerians kick out the French? If professional soldiers always defeat militias then how did they lose?
Troops then cordon off the area. They find the hidey-hole and rifle. Whether the resistor has thousands of rounds of ammo, and whether they’re still good becomes irrelevant. He now has one less rifle. The resistance would run out of rifles rather than ammunition following this tactic. Unless they can make some fantastic zip guns, its all over.
I’m still waiting for someone to provide even a remotely plausible solution to circumventing the military’s C³ capability. Choosing to ignore such a salient issue makes continuing this debate appear completely ridiculous. I shall continue to post this point until somebody provides any viable disproof.
Scattered pockets of resistance will NEVER be able to counter organized military force. Coordination of resistance efforts requires a secure and encoded communications network. Even the best encryption methods can’t stop a source guided missile. Do you honestly think that cell phones are going to be adequate to the task?
Face the question squarely.
Until this one single issue is addressed the rest of this debate is pure curtain twitching and hand waving.
They did it by fighting enemies whose most advanced equipment looks more like slingshots and BB guns compared with what our army issues to its buck privates. Recent technology shifts have made old style warfare irrelevant, hence my continued insistence that C³ now rules the day.
Zenster roger that. However, how many “resistance” fighters will be ex-crypto, computer geeks, signal corps, comm specialists, comm and control specialists, ex-platoon, ex-div officers, ex-brigade commanders? There are a boat-load of retired, got out early, specialists in this country that would have no problem setting up this kind of command and control structure in this country, if they are willing. The scenario of a lone sniper with his hunting rifle is feasible, but what about 25 snipers taking out a convoy, and the support team swooping in and commandeering a mortar team? Or a platoon getting surrounded and giving up their weapons and their ammo and/or going over to the resistance movement, thereby providing 10-15 thousand rounds of .223, not to mention the team SAW, and it’s 2000 rounds. I think the OP’s scenario is valid, in that it won’t be the rednecks in charge, but wanting to tag along as the retired, “were” professionals take over.
The Tyrant[sub]tm[/sub] has inteligence, manufacturing capabilities, communications, etc.
Additionally, the Tyrant[sub]tm[/sub] would not have the problems associated with occupying another country. There is no language or culture barrier. Personnel and resources are already deployed. Supply lines have been established for a long time. Almost none of the obstacles associated with sending troops to another country come into play.Well, Zenster, if you’re right then our occupation of Iraq is going to be a cakewalk…there’s no way the decentralized remnants of the Baath party, foreign Jihadis, Islamists, and nationalists can hope to compete with the US military.
While I believe that if we act intelligently we will ultimately prevail in Iraq, I absolutely do not think the outcome is a foregone conclusion. If the average citizen of Iraq is implacably opposed to the occupation, eventually we are going to have to leave with our tails between our legs. The trick is to work it so that the average Iraqi is NOT implacably opposed to the occupation.
The other thing you might remember is that our military is a professional fighting force, meaning that our soldiers are trained to fight. But in a dictatorship the dictator cannot trust the military. Ambitious and skillful officers are a threat, not an asset. Creative and flexible forces are dangerous. Under a dictatorship the military becomes a tool of social control, rather than a tool for fighting wars. How long will our professional and effective military survive?
BF, you left out things like air cover.
I still want to know how these “retired professionals” are going to set up a secure network. Home computers and ham radios are useless against modern surveillance methods. Besides, one squad going down like you mentioned above would bring several platoons of very determined and recently trained soldiers with even better weaponry. Still a no go there, BF.
Superior Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence are not a magic be all and end all assuring victory. Afghan C³I was weaker than that of the Soviet Union, and yet the USSR lost. NLF C³I was weaker than that of the US, and yet the US was forced to leave Vietnam. French C³I was superior to that of the Viet Mihn and they left Vietnam. German C³I was superior to that of the Soviet Union, and they lost World War II.
Guerillas are able to counter inferiority in C³I, among other things, by not fighting conventional battles. Their objectives in the short term are to establish an underground control over areas that, while it may overtly disappear when the army is there, reverts back once the army has gone off guerilla hunting elsewhere and to slowly weaken the governmental forces until they are able to stand up to them in conventional battle.
I am extremely skeptical of claims that recent technology shifts have made old style warfare irrelevant. Rumsfled’s claim of a Revolution in Military Affairs is hardly a new tale. McNamara made similar claims during his tenure, proponents of airpower in the 1920s and 30s claimed that future wars would be won through airpower alone and that navies were now irrelevant, the ATGM was claimed to have made tanks obsolete, etc, etc, etc. So far the only nation that this Revolution in Military Affairs has been tried on is Iraq, hardly a challenging opponent in conventional war and far from proof that this said revolution has made prior history irrelevant.
Look, it’s not that difficult. If you are trying to put civilians against the military, they’re doomed. If these civilians instead each decide to disrupt civil order and bring the government down that way, then the military can’t fight them.
They teach forensics in Boot now? Besides, one could easily circumvent this problem with homeade explosives in backpacks, cars, etc., and only snipe civilians.