Army equipment and vehicles.

And who kept going. When an Aussie tells me why his nations military basically will just run inland and hide, I like to remind them why that is. Seeing as they voluntarily disarmed a few years ago.
Oh, and me sign up. Well, at 50. Its alittle late. But its never too late or too old to be willing to fight for your country in a worse case scenario.
I can also guarantee that everyone of my family feels the same.

 

As I said - Paris was an open city.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_city

 

You mean like in 1814 where a band of 7,000 American civilians ran away from 3,000 British regulars outside Washington DC?

 

Never heard of the concept of a stay behind army?. The Australian army actually works with the smallest operational units in the world. Hundreds of three man teams co-ordinating attacks across the area of the United States.

 

Really? You are going to bring the Battle of Bladensburg into a discussion of 21st century armed US citizens. Ultimately, how did it all work out?

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And no offence, as I am sure they are hard fighters. But as a citizen of any nation. I would not wish to be unarmed.

 

Actually, it is very relevant. Especially since you were the one that brought it up.

First of all, you have to realize some facts here. The War of 1812 was not an "invasion". It was a series of raids by a largely uninterested England (they were mostly after Napoleon at the time). They held very little land, mostly involved in raids on various locations to disrupt the country. They would land, attack a town or fort, do as much damage as they could, then got back on their boats and moved on.

And the abilities of those who fought is actually above the level of the majority of 90% of civilians.

And those "warriors" you were talking about? Guess what, most of them would not be banding together with a bunch of grab-assed civilians. They will be banding with other veterans or joining remaining military units. And if some "Colonel" started banding together groups of random civilians to "defend the homeland" I would probably be more afraid of them then of the enemy. Because I imagine any enemy would try to follow "the rules", to keep resistance down.

I would be frightened that this individual would be using his own force against other US citizens (take them out, they are collaborationists!) and advancing their own glory then actually fighting the enemy.

And another thing history has shown us: such bands almost always happily turn upon their own people, killing them over ideological differences. I could give you scores of examples of this, and none where such bands really make a difference (other then to keep things more fracked up for longer then they would be if they did not exist).

And people wonder why I consider Loosertarians to mostly be made up of nutcases. Little contact with reality with far to many of them.

 

On being unarmed because our guns are more heavily regulated than the US. I don't want 25% of the British population owning guns, I want them to be as regulated as possible. Here you can get single shot guns for 5 year periods before you have to renew them. So hunting rifles and shot guns. Still against civilians even these guns can do a lot of demage, I guy called Derek Bird murdered 13 people in Cumbria south of where I live. The only reason he was able to do that is because the county doesn't have an armed response team. I really think all none essencial guns should be banned, I mean farmers don't need guns, yet many have them where I live. I think the US would see a large fall in number of none crime related murders if they brought in regulations. Once the armed police with specialist training got to the area and started track Bird's movements he ran into a wood and shot himself.

I think a person with a detailed understanding of the law and governmental system is more of a threat to the government than a numpty with a gun.

 

See, I knew your bias would eventually show. Thanks for playing.

 

I don't think I underestimate American resolve. But I wouldn't want to overestimate it either. If I was a foreign invader to the US, if I had any Resistance trouble I would cut off the electricity to the area. If they still kept it up, I would cut off city water and sewage. If they still kept it up, I would just send troops to a local elementary school, round up the kids, and ship them out of the area to a detention facility. At that point, I'm pretty sure the local police would be hunting the Resistance for me.

As for the topic of the thread, the battalion I was stationed with in Germany could easily move everyone in the unit if we had to bug out. But that was part of SOP back in the Cold War days, when Allied doctrine was to expect the Soviets to push all of the allied forces out of Germany before reinforcements could arrive. I would guess most Army tactical units Brigade size and smaller could deploy the entire unit if need be, but I'm sure there were lots of exceptions to that.

 

I think we can do without electric and sewer for a while to fight for our country.

 

Personally I think this notion of an invasionary landing on the shores of the continental U.S. is the stuff of fantasy. China could perhaps muster the troops, but they do not have the logistical capacity to move them with any degree of orderliness. We would see them massing their troops before they left port and prepare accordingly. Besides, China needs the U.S., we buy their stuff and keep their economy afloat. Why bite the hand that feeds them. Some folks have this Ramboesque fantasy of defending the home front with an AR-15 equipped with a few bells and whistles. "Bring it on commies" sort of mentality. We have more to worry about from them shooting themselves in the foot before any foreign invaders ever disembarked on the shores of California or paradropped on to some unsuspecting small town...think "Red Dawn."

It's an unlikely scenario, America has more to fear from an insidious mixture of mediocrity and apathy destroying the core character of what it is to be an American. We've become a nation of victimhood and privilege.

 

Technically, the military did not lose a single battle in Vietnam. Where we lost, I should say Vietnam veterans like yourself....where you lost was on the political home front and a war weary citizenry. The folks who sent people like you into harm's way failed to understand the culture and the willingness to survive underground eating rodents for weeks on end while above, millions of tons of bombs carpeted the landscape. Where you lost was not being able to break the NVA and VC will to fight, and willingness to die for their ideology. Much like the Japanese perverse Bushido code, if an enemy is willing to die before surrendering, you literally have to kill them all, and the citizenry grew weary of the bloodshed. Events like the My Lai massacre soured the view that the fight was a noble one...in essence troops like yourself became the bad guys. You however fought courageously in my humble opinion. You should never think otherwise. You may not have wanted to be there, perhaps at times your heart was not in it, but your service should always be thought as honorable.

 

Yes, people tend to forget the factions. My first thought when you posted that was Yugoslavia in WW2. The partisans spent almost as much time fighting each other as they did the Germans- though they were particularly bloodthirsty- to each other and the Germans.

Tends to bring the ideological extremes- ended up with lots of Fascists fighting lots of Communists- who tended to kill those who weren't 'politically correct'.

 

My immediate thought was of China. The Nationalists and Communists would happily band together sometimes to go after the Japanese, then turn right around and attack each other or turn each other into the Japanese. China could probably have actually expelled the Japanese, if they had ever been able to actually work together for the good of China instead of for only their own faction.

And it is not just a thing of the past, Hamas and Fatah are much the same way, mostly because Fatah is willing to actually work to a degree with Israel, while Hamas only wants the destruction of Israel.

 

I agree, the US will fall from within. China will just buy us with our own debt and cash.

 

It has been gamed out since the mid-1800s.

The only way to invade the US is through Mexico, up through Texas and California.

Logistics is the key. Modern armies consume A LOT of beans bullets, fuel, and batteries. Ship loads per day. You have to have a port. All the World War II invasions always had a very limited initial objective - the nearest port. In Normandy, nothing went anywhere until Cherbourg was taken. The objective of Salerno was Naples. Supplying a big army over a beach limits its capabilities. Mexico has a couple of decent sized ports. and may soon have another. Canada won't do. The St. Lawrence freezes. Vancouver is too near the US and leads only to some very mountainous terrain.

It has to be Mexico, even with a near-collapse internally.

 

Did I ever tell you that you are so sexy when you are talking about logistics?

*grin*

 

A fair point, and although I agree that the US won every battle, it's still fair to say that we lost the war. To defeat the enemy, you have to either destroy the enemy's ability to wage war or break his will to wage war. In the case of the US, our will was broken. It was so broken, that even after we had withdrawn our troops, we cut off the funding to support the government that we had already spent over 50,000 thousand lives to maintain. We sat there and let the NVA roll right through the South Vietnam. That's as good an example as any I can think of in a historical context of a much more powerful country having it's will broken and losing the war.

 

Amateurs study tactics. Professionals study logistics.

 

Isn't logistics both strategic and tactical? I am a amateur so I supply only tactics.

 

Make sure you won't burst from that idiotic self-righteous supermcy BS. You are full of it.

 

Logistics are both strategic and tactical. Both are absolutely necessary.

The supremacy of logistics over tactics has long been accepted. Modern armies cannot live off the land as Wallenstein's armies did.

 

And how far is your army going to move without logistics?

That is what ultimately kept both Napoleon and Hitler out of Russia. They simply could not provide enough supplies to their troops, so they failed.

That is logistics my friend.

 

I wasn't talking about logistics. And the worst part is that you know that too.

Oh look at what we have here. Someone can't grasp the difference between the reason and the consequence. It was strategy that lead them into that situation in the first place.

 

And you have just proven that you do not even understand basic military terminology. Because it is a strategic fail for either Napoleon or Hitler to invade a neutral Russia/Soviet Union. In fact, it is completely counter to Strategy to have done so.

Stop trying to be a wanna-be military troll, you fail badly at it.