Roe and Guns

[Josh]

I see it pretty much how Ken said it in his last post.

One scenario I could see small arms making a difference though, might be some scenario where small arms make enough difference to hold the tide until a major foreign power begins to support it with larger weapons. Like the west is doing in Ukraine now. Or like the communist supported the rebels in Rawanda/Zimbabwe.
No force can hold out successfully with only small arms, but if they can for a bit, someone may help them. Like the French did in the American Revolution. Or the Viet Cong were helped by the Chinese. America has plenty of enemies and rivals who would be thrilled to help a rebellion.
But if there is no major power interested in helping, small arms are a waste of time.

Just my two bit idea.

Afghanistan beat back an American invasion basically with small arms (and lots of them) along improvised explosives. (“Small arms” in military speak includes tripod mounted machine guns.)

[Ken]

I see it pretty much how Ken said it in his last post.

One scenario I could see small arms making a difference though, might be some scenario where small arms make enough difference to hold the tide until a major foreign power begins to support it with larger weapons. Like the west is doing in Ukraine now. Or like the communist supported the rebels in Rawanda/Zimbabwe.
No force can hold out successfully with only small arms, but if they can for a bit, someone may help them. Like the French did in the American Revolution. Or the Viet Cong were helped by the Chinese. America has plenty of enemies and rivals who would be thrilled to help a rebellion.
But if there is no major power interested in helping, small arms are a waste of time.

Just my two bit idea.

Afghanistan beat back an American invasion basically with small arms (and lots of them) along improvised explosives. (“Small arms” in military speak includes tripod mounted machine guns.)

Afghanistan did not beat back an American invasion. The American military could do whatever it wanted and go wherever it wanted in Afghanistan. I don't think there was a single major battle anywhere in the 20 years of war in which the Afghans beat American forces with small arms or otherwise.

What happened is that the US uselessly poured hundreds of billions of dollars into a corrupt and unpopular government that fell apart the moment we left. And the Taliban smartly bought off all the important military commanders in the Afghan army so they faced no resistance when American troops pulled back.

The failure in Afghanistan was a nation-building failure not a military failure. And the nation building effort was doomed to fail literally from day 1. What I suspect (without much evidence mind you) is that the American military industrial complex didn't really want or care about a stable civilian government in Afghanistan. What they wanted was MAJOR permanent bases in Afghanistan from which American troops could "project power" into Pakistan, Iran, and Central Asia. With bases in both Iraq and Afghanistan as well as Saudi Arabia the US basically had Iran surrounded.

In other words, they planned to stay in Afghanistan forever just like in Korea and gave little care to what kind of civilian government was in place as long as it was friendly towards US military interests.

I think both Trump and Biden upset the plan as both of them were suspicious of the military-industrial complex that is more a creation of neo-con types like Dick Cheney and Henry Kissinger. And neither Trump nor Biden were really part of that world. I think Obama and Clinton both dabbled in it, Clinton moreso, and Bush was in it up to his eyeballs.

[Ken]

I see it pretty much how Ken said it in his last post.

One scenario I could see small arms making a difference though, might be some scenario where small arms make enough difference to hold the tide until a major foreign power begins to support it with larger weapons. Like the west is doing in Ukraine now. Or like the communist supported the rebels in Rawanda/Zimbabwe.
No force can hold out successfully with only small arms, but if they can for a bit, someone may help them. Like the French did in the American Revolution. Or the Viet Cong were helped by the Chinese. America has plenty of enemies and rivals who would be thrilled to help a rebellion.
But if there is no major power interested in helping, small arms are a waste of time.

Just my two bit idea.

Ukraine isn't holding back Russia with small arms. There is very little small-arms conflict between opposing infantry forces happening in that war. Even from day one. Ukraine is fighting with artillery, hand-held anti-tank weapons, tanks, helicopters, drones, etc. And most certainly not the type of small arms that Americans buy at Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops. Most of the damage they are doing to Russia is from drone-targeted precision artillery, handheld anti-tank missiles and that sort of thing. Not squads of infantry militias beetling about on the ground with rifles. When they do have troops on the ground it is only in support of larger weaponry and armor (combined arms). In fact, Russia has very little infantry and what infantry they do have is mostly mounted in armored transports that are invulnerable to small arms fire. There are very few Russian targets that are even vulnerable to small arms.

You don't do this with small arms

[Robert]

Seems some here do not understand guerrilla warfare. This is what was used in Iraq and Afghanistan. The idea is not to go toe to toe with the larger military. It is to interrupt supply lines and just make it so costly the other just gives up and pulls out.

This is how IEDs and small groups can continually make the cost go up and up. They immediately disappear into the population and it is very hard to ferret them all out.

Guerrilla warfare is all about the long haul and slowly wearing down the enemy. Most cultures do not see 20 years as a big deal. We do because we are so used to instant everything. Most other cultures will make a fight generational.

ANy invading body into the US would find, even without a military, it would be very hard to hold anything taken.

[Ken]

Seems some here do not understand guerrilla warfare. This is what was used in Iraq and Afghanistan. The idea is not to go toe to toe with the larger military. It is to interrupt supply lines and just make it so costly the other just gives up and pulls out.

This is how IEDs and small groups can continually make the cost go up and up. They immediately disappear into the population and it is very hard to ferret them all out.

Guerrilla warfare is all about the long haul and slowly wearing down the enemy. Most cultures do not see 20 years as a big deal. We do because we are so used to instant everything. Most other cultures will make a fight generational.

ANy invading body into the US would find, even without a military, it would be very hard to hold anything taken.

Any military powerful enough to actually launch a successful amphibious invasion of the United States is also going to be powerful enough to reduce American cities to rubble. And they will have columns of armored vehicles and aircraft that will be invulnerable to small arms fire. The notion that a bunch of overweight militia wannabees with firearms they purchased at Cabela's will slow them down is laughable.

There might very well be guerilla groups cropping up in the wake of such a hypothetical invasion. But they won't be fighting with the weapons that gun collectors have in their garages. They will be fighting with actual military weapons supplied by the military. The Taliban and ISIS did not fight with civilian weapons and handguns either. They fought with military weapons.

[RZehr]

I see it pretty much how Ken said it in his last post.

One scenario I could see small arms making a difference though, might be some scenario where small arms make enough difference to hold the tide until a major foreign power begins to support it with larger weapons. Like the west is doing in Ukraine now. Or like the communist supported the rebels in Rawanda/Zimbabwe.
No force can hold out successfully with only small arms, but if they can for a bit, someone may help them. Like the French did in the American Revolution. Or the Viet Cong were helped by the Chinese. America has plenty of enemies and rivals who would be thrilled to help a rebellion.
But if there is no major power interested in helping, small arms are a waste of time.

Just my two bit idea.

Ukraine isn't holding back Russia with small arms. There is very little small-arms conflict between opposing infantry forces happening in that war. Even from day one. Ukraine is fighting with artillery, hand-held anti-tank weapons, tanks, helicopters, drones, etc. And most certainly not the type of small arms that Americans buy at Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops. Most of the damage they are doing to Russia is from drone-targeted precision artillery, handheld anti-tank missiles and that sort of thing. Not squads of infantry militias beetling about on the ground with rifles. When they do have troops on the ground it is only in support of larger weaponry and armor (combined arms). In fact, Russia has very little infantry and what infantry they do have is mostly mounted in armored transports that are invulnerable to small arms fire. There are very few Russian targets that are even vulnerable to small arms.

You don't do this with small arms

I see that I wasn’t real clear with what I wrote. I meant to simply point out how the West jumped in with large weapons as soon as they saw that Russia wasn’t in for a cake walk. I didn’t mean to say the the current war is being dictated by small arms.
I meant to say that if an insurrection in the US was somehow showing remarkable success, there would likely be many US enemies more than happy to supply the insurgency with additional weapons.

[Ken]

I see that I wasn’t real clear with what I wrote. I meant to simply point out how the West jumped in with large weapons as soon as they saw that Russia wasn’t in for a cake walk. I didn’t mean to say the the current war is being dictated by small arms.

I meant to say that if an insurrection in the US was somehow showing remarkable success, there would likely be many US enemies more than happy to supply the insurgency with additional weapons.

Gotcha.

Although that seems extremely far-fetched in today's world. I'm not sure how any enemy of the US would manage to funnel weapons and supplies to insurgents in some remote part of the US. And they certainly wouldn't get anywhere fighting the US military with random small arms purchased at US gun shops.

I'm not arguing about guerilla warfare. It is a constant thing around the world from Colombia to Yemen to Myanmar. I am disagreeing with the notion that a bunch of older Americans with their Glocks and ARs would constitute any sort of American guerilla army or militia. And that the Second Amendment means that the US has any kind of turn-key guerilla army or militia ready to repel a modern military invasion or even slow it down. That is a bad Hollywood fantasy. And it was even a fantasy during the Revolutionary War. Modern guerilla armies use military weapons not civilian stuff like that sold in American gun shops. And they are actual armies. The Viet Cong or Taliban were hardened, disciplined and fanatical fighters operating under strict chains of command, many of whom had spent their entire adult lives at war and devoted to their ideological cause. That doesn't describe your average middle age American with a gun safe in the garage.

[Robert]

There might very well be guerilla groups cropping up in the wake of such a hypothetical invasion. But they won't be fighting with the weapons that gun collectors have in their garages.

A good Deer rifle with a scope will be a good sniper weapon to take out leadership. We are not talking a few guns here and there. We are talking 400 million guns available to those who want one. This will do a lot of damage because you can take ground, but you have to hold ground and that needs soldiers. Soldiers need supply lines and light vehicles. The past 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan shows us that a few with weapons can cause a disproportionate amount of grief and damage.

Trying to make it sound trivial is a rationalization. You are welcome to your opinion as I am to mine. I see it as a strong deterrent. I also see it as a strong deterrent to the federal government too.

[Ken]

There might very well be guerilla groups cropping up in the wake of such a hypothetical invasion. But they won't be fighting with the weapons that gun collectors have in their garages.

A good Deer rifle with a scope will be a good sniper weapon to take out leadership. We are not talking a few guns here and there. We are talking 400 million guns available to those who want one. This will do a lot of damage because you can take ground, but you have to hold ground and that needs soldiers. Soldiers need supply lines and light vehicles. The past 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan shows us that a few with weapons can cause a disproportionate amount of grief and damage.

Trying to make it sound trivial is a rationalization. You are welcome to your opinion as I am to mine. I see it as a strong deterrent. I also see it as a strong deterrent to the federal government too.

According to the Pentagon, about half of all US casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan were caused by IEDs, car bombs, and suicide bombers. The rest by RPGs, mortars and rockets, grenades, car crashes and other accidents, electrocutions, friendly fire, and yes, some by automatic weapons fire. Very few by the sorts of weapons that constitute the vast majority of those 400 million firearms scattered about the US, the majority of which are actually handguns. The majority of gun purchases these days are small handguns for concealed carry, not weapons that would be effective against an invading army.

If you were going to form up a militia with all the other gun owners in your town to fight against an invading army. What sort of ammunition should the US Army drop in to resupply? Most civilian rifles are not designed to fire NATO standard ammo even if the caliber is the same and most are not.

As for deterring the Federal government? Just what is it that you think all those civilian firearms are deterring the Federal government from doing?

[Soloist]

In Iraq and Afghanistan they defeated our tanks and our Humvees with IED's and shocked troops which ended up home displaying the cost of a war. A missing leg does more damage then 20 caskets. We cannot defend supply lines with tanks. Everyone who knows anything about urban warfare knows a tank unsupported by infantry is toast. Why? easy to flank, easy to disable (with small arms) easy to destroy with IED's. Send in troops and tanks and you end up with a leveled city and more hatred. Any force looking to conquer America does not want leveled cities and no infrastructure. While there would be a serious shake up in terms of who lived out of these civilian "militia" wannabes, don't underestimate the value of small arms. No war is won by tanks and planes. You need an occupying force of infantry. We have long known we can take out any significant military opposition in the Middle east and our enemies know that massed troops is a single bomb away from being destroyed. They do not engage when the battle is "fair" nor when the odds are against them. To defeat a well armed civilian group you have to do it from within unless you simply don't care for casualties.

The point is, modern weapons depend heavily on supply lines which are very difficult to protect from hostile civilians armed with rifles. Especially when those civilians know the territory and the enemy does not.