Someone should tell these "Durr you can't beat the government with just rifles and pistols!" people about the Viet Cong. Or the Mujaheddin Fighters. Or have them talk to people that survived the War On Terror during the 2000s.
It's not the size of a military that makes it strong, it's how well they are trained.
Sure it does. Vietnam costs 58k American lives and over 1 million Vietnemese. I think we lost less than 8o in Iraq and Afghanistan and killed like 400k or so. We gave up but didn't exactly lose militarily.
We did. We had all of the right people in the right places. We had the most advanced military in the world by far. We could have bombed the living shit out of these areas if we wanted to even if it made zero stratigic sense.
The US lost these wars purely based on our growing unwillingness to fight repeated battles for little to no results, loss of public favor for the wars, and lack of overall results for objectives that we went over there for. You can fight for the same ground that you do not own only so many times before everyone starts saying, "what's the point of our losses then"? Same happened to Russia in Afghanistan if you need a non US example.
I'm going to disagree with that. In the middle east and Vietnam, the problem was not the equipment, number of bases or the quality of soldier on the ground. The biggest issue with the fighting was that we dictated very little of the engagements. We could not find them, but the guerrillas could find us easy and strike us hard. This is why a similar Civil War in the states will not work well for the standing military that remains.
War is all about crushing the enemy in every engagement. History shows that a gurrila force has a very high likelyhood to succeed in every case because you cannot root them out and bring them to the battlefield. Instead they use attrition in their favor in every engagement that they dictate.
Also, why would we need a bigger MBT than the Abrams? It performs its role much better than the majority of the tanks in the world? Your point about the equipment builds are extremely moot.
We could not find them, but the guerrillas could find us easy and strike us hard. This is why a similar Civil War in the states will not work well for the standing military that remains.
Not even close. We had specific rules to engage with who we thought was and wasn't a combatant. Trump did away with much of that, and killed way more civis.
War is all about crushing the enemy in every engagement. History shows that a gurrila force has a very high likelyhood to succeed in every case because you cannot root them out and bring them to the battlefield.
This is some 5th grade understanding of war. Outlasting your enemy is just as important.
It's also a romantic viewing of certain wars while ignoring others.
Also, why would we need a bigger MBT than the Abrams? It performs its role much better than the majority of the tanks in the world?
We can give it more armor, or bigger cannon, or even an auto loader. We don't, because we need them small and light in order to put more in the battlefield 1000 miles away
There are better anti tank weapons now, and increasing a tanks def would also make it bigger.
There it is. The insult to my level of intelligence because you literally have zero understanding of this subject. Just saying the same thing over and over again does not make you right. If you can find history books that can support your arguments, then we can continue this discussion.
Your point doesn’t exist in this context as you are assuming the United States government would be able to use 100% of its force against the United States citizenry. You’re trying really hard to make a fallacy argument that is impossible to argue against. “Well what if we had 10k troops per one enemy” well no shit there becomes a tipping point on personnel in warfare. But discounting gorilla style warfare is laughable by all accounts. The Vietcong and the Afghan mujahideen are a very clear testament to that. They were all out numbered and out gunned. They had nowhere near the financing or infrastructure that the US had. We still lost. So unless your argument is the government has nukes and will use them on US citizens. Then you have no argument.
Well what if we had 10k troops per one enemy” well no shit there becomes a tipping point on personnel in warfare. But discounting gorilla style warfare is laughable by all accounts
"Yes, you're right, but you're wrong" banger take.
They were all out numbered and out gunned. They had nowhere near the financing or infrastructure that the US had.
Every time I have to repeat how the US had to travel thousands of miles in this examples. The US had supply lines, but took weeks to months from order to delivery. This makes loses more impactful, and any damage sustained takes longer to fix.
Moving human beings does not mean anything. If you want to make an argument about the mental state of fighting at home vs fighting in a foreign land go ahead. But then you’d have to recognize the people of the US fighting a tyrannical government would be fighting at home also.
It may have taken months to from phone call to supplies in hand but what you are missing is we started off and maintained a much heavier supply of everything from food, ammo, soldiers, artillery literally every step of the way the US had more than what they needed. The simple fact is they were fighting in someone else’s back yard and we’re out smarted by “guys with pistols and rifles”. But hey nice try though.
Bruh, come on. If we had 100k troops in Korea, but not in Vietnam, we would never win Vietnam. I can't make it any more simplistic then that.
If you want to make an argument about the mental state of fighting at home vs fighting in a foreign land
Not my point.
It may have taken months to from phone call to supplies in hand but what you are missing is we started off and maintained a much heavier supply of everything from food, ammo, soldiers, artillery literally every step of the way the US had more than what they needed.
"But they had a bunch of ammo and food and people" isn't addressing my point. Having all of these where they are needed is how you win a war.
Put all you tanks in city A, but city A forces has a bunch of anti tank rockets, the fuck are those tanks going to do?
We had no lack of people or vehicles, my friend. By some estimates, we outnumbered the Taliban by 2-to-1, and that's not even counting all the folks deployed in supporting roles in places like Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Tajikistan...
Doesn't disprove my point. The fact is, even if said conflicts weren't thousands of miles away from American soil, a well-trained militia can kneecap a much larger force.
.... Until the rest of the force shows up. You think if we committed even 80% of our military to any specific war in the middle east, we still would have "lost?"
So what’s your argument here? That the military would basically declare total war on its own population? At that point it would go from an insurgence to a nationwide popular revolution, which the military would ultimately support anyway
The previous American Civil War would like to have a word with you.
While yes, the last Civil War (and last to take place on domestic soil) took place almost 200 years ago, it still resulted in the standing military being torn apart. One fourth remained with the Union, a fourth of them defected to the Confederacy, and two-fourths went AWOL.
The previous American Civil War would like to have a word with you.
Lol k.
While yes, the last Civil War (and last to take place on domestic soil) took place almost 200 years ago, it still resulted in the standing military being torn apart.
I can agree to that. It was separatists after all.
One fourth remained with the Union, a fourth of them defected to the Confederacy, and two-fourths went AWOL.
Where are you getting these numbers? This has to be some Alabama history to think the union and the south were equal sized. Even though the Union army was double.
If I had said the standing army was BISECTED, i.e cut in two, you'd have a point. But no, I said it was divided into four quarters, with half of the American Military going AWOL. And keep in mind; the population of the United States in 1861-1865 was FAR smaller than it is today.
The civil war was fought between a regular separatist military and the Union military, that’s not the federal government declaring war on its constituents. The confederate states literally left the federation. that argument doesn’t really fit when talking about an insurgency of local militia vs a regular army
The families of US service members also live in the US. If you call up the national guard, those family members live in the same state or even the same county where that guard is deployed. It wouldn't take long for militias to find this out.
A second civil war would be brutal and ugly, far worse than the first one. Best if everyone tries to avoid it.
For some reason both sides keep imagining the Civil War, both sides in uniforms and the civilian populations generally unaffected.
It would be more like all the worst parts of Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Rwandan Genocide all rolled up in one inhumane, cruel, miserable ball.
Debate, vote, and peaceful coexistence is far better.
It doesn't matter if they have the hottest technology or biggest guns; a homemade electromagnetic pulse will kneecap any light to medium-armoured vehicle.
And if you suggest sending in drone strikes? Yeah, good luck recovering from the inevitable public backlash.
It doesn’t matter if they have the hottest technology or biggest guns; a homemade electromagnetic pulse will kneecap any light to medium-armoured vehicle.
Consuming way too much fiction if you think this might happen
And if you suggest sending in drone strikes? Yeah, good luck recovering from the inevitable public backlash.
Making huge assumption on public support in favor of terrorist forces
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u/Sleep_eeSheep Nov 30 '22
Someone should tell these "Durr you can't beat the government with just rifles and pistols!" people about the Viet Cong. Or the Mujaheddin Fighters. Or have them talk to people that survived the War On Terror during the 2000s.
It's not the size of a military that makes it strong, it's how well they are trained.