Red Dawn II

D

David Scott

New member
Here's a scenario for you:

Armed forces of a foreign nation have landed on US soil, and a battalion of their infantry is marching toward your county seat, intending to depose the local government and take control. They will arrive in 12 hours; the US Army says a mixed division of infantry, air cavalry and armor will be there in 24 hours.

The invaders number about 2,500; they are carrying Chinese-made AK47s and grenades. They have a couple dozen RPGs. They are marching boldly down a four-lane highway through hilly country, partly farmland and partly wooded. A few miles outside town, the highway crosses a wide, swift-flowing river via a suspension bridge. When they get to your town, the first thing they'll see is residential subdivisions.

The county commissioners have asked you to organize the resistance. The call to action has been put out, and you find yourself in command of the following:

200 people with shotguns.
300 people with scoped, bolt-action hunting rifles.
200 people with lever-action rifles.
150 people with AR-15s, AKs, SKSes, and FN/FALs.
150 people with assorted handguns.
500 military veterans who want to help but are not armed.
One guy who runs a construction company, offering the use of his heavy equipment and the 4500 sticks of dynamite he has in stock.
Five private pilots with single-engine planes. Two are crop dusters.
20 people with boats moored along the river.

You have plenty of vehicles and gasoline, and all the stores in the area have offered as much ammo as you can use, and anything else you can think of. You have about one cell phone for every five people, and 200 FRS walkie-talkies with about a 2 mile range.

All 1500+ of your troops have gathered in the school gym to await your orders. What do you do? What orders do you give?
 
Hey, what's more important than saving our homes from invading troops? I forgot to mention that these troops are from the People's Republic of Moronia. They believe that their leader, Emperor Grand Field Marhsal His Royal Highness Schmucko The First, is the reincarnation of their national god, Guuf-Baal, and they are coming to put a stop to our unclean, demonic practices like eating ice cream, driving pickup trucks, and allowing women to walk around with their earlobes uncovered. :)
 
The invaders marching to enslave you will be wearing city police, look like you and have a legal warrant to confiscate your guns.
 
David,
I don't know of any army in the world that would be armed and equipped the way you describe. 2500 is closer to brigade or regimental strength then battalion. Where are their supporting arms and what are their capabilites? How did they get to the good ole USA? Airdrop? Amphibious landing? Smuggled in trucks across the Mexican or Canadian border?

Are there other bridges or fords between the Moronian forces and your town?

The easy answer is to blow the bridge at let the river keep them out.

Jeff
 
as described, i'd say that your invaders are toast. w/o armor or air support i think the members of your local sporting clays club could take them

peace and all that

stick
 
Blow the bridge. When they finaly get to the other side if they do at all then:

First of forget about the planes. 2,500 troops would file the plane full of .223s. Although it would be nice to be able to drop dynomite it would work for long.

The people with han guns and shot guns need to take up short range defensive positons. But these people have to be mobile. If they stay in one spot all it will take is a couple of gernades to kill a ton of friendlys.

With dynamite one would need to be able to boobytrap a large area and be able to set it off remotely as soons as the enemy is in position.

Once the dynamite is set up (make the noncombatens do this) get the non-comatents out of town tell them to use some of the cars just get them out. The rest of the cars would be best used( I think for quick hit and runs inside the town. Put people with shotguns in the cars and put as much armor on the car as possible. take about 25-50 rifle shooters and place them inside the town at stertegic position where each sniper could defend each other.

For the rest of the shotgun and pistol people put them in the buildings to help protect the nipers and kill any enemy that tries to enter the building for protection from the snipers.

take about 250 scoped rifles and 100 ar shooters cut the groups in half and place them towards the northeast and southeast, assuming the eneym is coming from the east. keep them out as fars as they will have the enemy come inbetween the north and south groups but not so far that they could not close up and engagde the enemy in a timely manner.

Once the emeny has come between the north and south groups set of some dynomite and come within range so the enemy is in a crossfire. The AR-15 shooters would be better covering the back side so the enemy would npot suprise the north and south groups if they manage to out flank our good guys.

Keep setting of more and more dynamite as the enemy as they get closer. Hopeful everythin has gone good and the enemy general is an idiot because I am sure there is a way to destroy any of our plans.

Once the enemy has entered the town have everyone close in on the town. Kill any enemy with an rpg first and then any officers if identifiable.

I think this plan is a crap shoot but I don't know much about convential tactics except if you don't have conventional weapons you don't fight a conventional war.

BTW I am do not know anything about these types of tactics I just though it would be fun to respond to this post.

You may now tear my plan apart.

Or could you just load up a large strip of freeway and destroy as soon as their on top of it. thenmop up thye rest wit ar and scoped rifles.
 
Well, 12 hours marching time at 3.5 KPH divided by 1.6 puts them about 26.5 miles from town. How many more miles is it from the river to the town?

Looks to me like you could destroy the bridge, move all the boats to your side of the river and wait for the Army. If the river is too wide and fast to ford without the bridge, they'd be hard pressed to get a credible force to the other side before the professionals arrived.

Your pilots could keep an eye on them without getting in small arms or RPG range. If they don't have any logistics with them, they'll have to stop for water and rest at the river anyway. They'll also be kind of hungry at the end of that 12 hour forced march.

Some security forces between the river and the town in case they do manage to cross the river will force them to deploy into a tactical formation and this will slow them down considerably.

Even if you just dropped one span of the bridge, they'd be hours rigging a crossing, especially if you covered it with sniper fire.

That's my plan, drop one span of the bridge, cover the obstacle I've just created with fire and let them stack up into an easy ICM or MK 82 Rockeye target on the far side of the river. It'd be a turkey shoot once the Army arrived.

Jeff
 
Good so far, guys, you seem to realize that some of the stuff I threw in was red herrings ("Communism was just a Red herring" -- Tim Curry, as the butler in "Clue"). I do have some specific stuff in mind, though. I'll post it here later this weekend, give you all a chance to expand on it.

Clues:

If you were one of the 1100 armed volunteers, and the leader said, "I've got 500 military vets here, raring to go, but they have no weapons," what's the first thing that would come to your mind?

Never put all your eggs in one basket.

The right tool for the right job?

It's agreed you should blow the bridge, but when?
 
How could a brigade that badly organized & led get on US soil? The last time anyone marched out in the open without total air superiority was in Kuwait, and look what happened to them!

Not that this would ever happen in real life anywhere, let alone in the USA as you described it. But if it did and the enemy forces had no HMGs, MMGs, armored recon vehicles and artillery support.
You only need to delay 12 hours? (24 hours minus the 12-hours march time)

We can do this real simple.

DONT BLOW THE BRIDGE! Save this as last-ditch because you will need it for when the USArmy regulars and heavy equiptment come later to repel the beach head. I'm assuming you want to save the town for logistic reasons.

If they're really going to be marching thru enemy country in column packing small arms, undispersed, with no scouts and not having "confiscated" a few dozen trucks:

1) Use the construction equiptment to dig defenses on top of hills on both sides of the road to shoot them down in crossfire & defilade with your scoped riflemen & up to 1/2 of your battle-rifle equiped men. Think trench warfare against an inferior enemy, use your range advantage to pick them off from 1000-500 yards, they'll probably never even get close.

2) Have fall-back positions dug-in on the reverse-slope of these same hills just in case they manage to get past your first line on the hilltops. More assault rifles, lever guns and some shotgunners here. This will cover your possible retreat as well as devastate any attempts to overrun your positions (I'll refrain from explaining the benefits of "plunging fire")

3) Knock down the trees & use the woods as your rallying point for your forces in #1 & #2 above. Use the woods to slow down & harry remaining enemy forces. Dig defenses in two lines, one just at edge of woodline and second 100 yards inside the woods, use your shotgunners & lever actions here since they're useful for defense & short range action.

4) Use airplanes to scout enemy activity.

5) Use unarmed vets as work crew, they'll listen to directions and are used to working togther. Send John Rambo to the front with his knife & bow.

6) Use handgunners as town security force to control looting, communications, traffic, crowd control etc. They're useless in real combat.

7) During the fighting, dig additional defenses in front of the bridge for a "worst case" last ditch effort.

8) Sit back and let the advance Air Cav blow them up.

9) Your biggest problem will be in controlling the Americans. Use a heavy hand to make sure everyone follows orders and stays at his/her post.

Your scoped riflemen would probably kill between 15-30% of the enemy before they routed. Against a determined enemy trained for close assault, your first line would probably kill even more of them, but that's why you should defend in depth. Your first wo lines on the hills should win your "battle".

They'll never reach the bridge in time before Army regulars arrived.
 
I'm with Jeff on this one. Drop a span of that bridge and get the AR, AK, and lever-action guys on that bank under some cover and have a turkey shoot.

Send some of the AR, AK, FAL, and scoped guys on both sides of the road and get them into a crossfire either coming at you or from behind as they march ahead of their positions.

I'd get the boats out of there. All they are are targets. Unless you have a gunboat nestled in there somewhere.


I don't know a company from a regiment.
I was never in the Army. I was Air Force and was trying to figure out a way to use those AC in other than a recce platform. Especially the two 'dusters. Poison chemicals maybe? Probably get they're asses shot off with the RPG's trying to get in that close. After they've expended them, who knows. I do know that a light AC won't take much rifle fire before coming down. Fast and low maybe with the 'dusters.
A 400HP Aircat will really move. Hose 'em down with teargas, OC or anything lethal while the guys on the road sides, are crossfiring them. Read...Ambush.

You might be able to drop a handful of the scoped bolt-action guys behind their formation. Start picking off the seniors one at a time.

Get those 500 men armed! Gun stores in the area have ammo, get them some guns to go with it!

I would station some of the men with shotguns and handguns in strategic spots thoughout the city such as power and water facilities as well as communication centers. Wouldn't hurt to have some AR, AK, FAL, guys there too.

How'd I do?

Some of you Army field officers want to help out here?
 
Well now...

not being an arm-chair general...

Lots of "tactics" here, but here's a couple thoughts to plug into any "plan":

1. Ammo - you have miscellaneous calibers - they have AKs - one ammo.
2. Is the river fordable without the bridge? If so blowing the bridge is not battle effective.
a. it is a faster path for your saviours to enter;
b. it presents a narrow (and reasonably controllable) passage to your enemy. Controlled and manipulated (tactics), you can off a bunch of BGs and with heavy small arms fire and drive the remainder back to regroup (and rethink), then you can recover many more AKs/ammo needed to arm your "veterans" et al. Face it - store owners won't keep up with the firing rate and you'll have nothing but unusable cartidges left (to throw at the BGs, huh?).

Take a leaf from "The Patriot" - use the trees and other cover to trim the march down to reasonable numbers - after all, they are strangers - your folks know the terrain. Don't charge the field - they are (I suppose) trained soldiers. They are also limited to what they carry. Make it hard to get potable water. Consider burning the crops if any but only after the fields no longer provide you cover.

There's probably more, but I'm weary now.

Have fun. Let me know who wins ok?

-Andy
 
Good posts here and a lot of good in CWL's post.

Amongst the hunters, I would want to know which are successful bow hunters and riflemen. They would be better at shot selection.

I would want to know the skills and capabilities of the 500 vets. That is not a very big vet pool and with bad luck you won't have riflemen, sappers, EOD etc. With good luck, some of them will be the real deal and the rest will be obedient workers.

If the intel re the opposing force's strength and strengths is correct, this should not be a very costly defence. Especialy if the good guys have a hundred or more very good people.

Sounds like a modern Thermopolye set up only with better odds for the good guys.

If the duster drivers are willing to go up against the RPGs, any dust will do a lot to scare the whey out of the bad guys. Malthion being relatively harmless will make em think they have been poisened.

Establishment of communications with the regular forces coming to help will be nearly manditory to avoid taking heat from their advance units. Friendly fire isn't.

Molon Freekin Labe bad guys.

Sam
 
Why Fight if You Don't Have To?

You have this wide fast river between you and the footborne unit that's attacking, so why fight?

If the Army is coming to the rescue in 24 hours all you really need to do is delay the Moronian's advance. You can do this by committing almost no forces of your own. The US Army division that is coming to your rescue will engage and most likely destroy or disperse the Moronians with long range fires before any ground maneuver units arrive. Tac air, attack helos, MLRS and 155mm artillery will have them under fire early. If the division is only 24 hours out, there is most likely an LRSU detachment already in the area with eyes on the enemy. All you need to do is bottle them up at the bridge and wait. The engineer battalion organic to the divison base will have enough bridge to completely cross the river if necessary, replacing one span of the existing bridge won't slow the counter attack down by much.

Jeff
 
Well, here's my thoughts.

First, you need to get those planes in the air, flying in relays to monitor the enemy's progress from beyond small arms range. Just because they were on the highway doesn't mean they'll stay on it. Keep tabs on them, and establish communications with the Army forces coming in so they'll be up to date.

Second, arm those 500 vets. Ask all the folks who brought guns to the party if they have spares they can loan to a fellow defender. Also tap the local gun stores, as was pointed out. You want battle rifles first, then lever actions, then shotguns.

Get whatever load-bearing equipment you can. Every man should have a backpack with ammo, food and water. Also find some flares and floodlights with generators in case of night action.

When you start dividing up your troops into units, give them catchy unit names. It's a morale thing, like Patrick Swayze yelling "Wolverines!" For leaders, pass over the barstool commandos and choose the calm and competent types.

Get your folks with the boats to remove all boats from the far side of the river, working outward from the bridge. Don't give the enemy any means to cross. Also evacuate any civilians on that side. Tell them to bring their guns.

Get that bridge wired with enough TNT to blow the center span, but hold off on detonating.

The folks with handguns won't be very effective at the ranges we'll be fighting, so they get to organize the evacuation of the town, and patrol for looters. Split them into 3 man patrols with assigned territories and give them radios.

The battle plan is to use multiple lines of resistence, but not to fight a pitched battle except at the last resort. The first line is at the far side of the bridge. Get your scoped rifles on high ground; their targets are officers and NCOs plus anyone carrying a radio or RPG. Reinforce them with your auto-rifle guys. They will set up on both sides, aiming down the road with overlapping fields of fire. Use cover and concealment. When the invaders approach, wait till they're well within range of your weapons -- about 200 yards, maybe. Then your guys have 60 seconds to dump as much fire as they can into the bad guys, then dash for the river, where your boats will take them across.

Once across the river, they will be dug in along the bank (entrenchments provided by that construction guy) and interdict a crossing. If the bad guys try to cross the bridge, then you blow it, with them on it.

Behind the guys at the riverbank, there are more trenches, with at least 100 yards of clear fields of fire. Bulldoze trees if you have to. Your lever-action and shotgun troops are already there. If the enemy does get across the river, this is your fallback position for the guys at the river. If you have time and materials, you can put obstacles out in the, like concertina wire or just twisted chain-link fence.

Behind this set of trench lines you will have pickup trucks loaded with ammo supplies and more water (water is important). Put another set of trenches every 200 yards back to the edge of town. At the bottom of every line of trenches, bury sticks of dynamite with 55 gallon drums of gasoline on top of them. If you have to fall back, you'll blow these when the enemy reaches the trenches you just left.

If you have to fall back into the town, have prepared high positions for the snipers, with stockpiles of ammo and a couple spotters each. Spotters will have small arms to protect the sniper, and binoculars. Block streets with cars and trucks. Your tactics here will be to use your local knowledge for run-and-gun -- you pop up, hit 'em quick, and vanish to pop up again elsewhere.

Prepare a facility for prisoners and one for medical treatment. Have fire and rescue teams standing by.

Then get out there and kick some Moronian butt.
 
Get the heavy machinery to work and build up some defensive postions about 300 yards from the river. Wire the bridge to blow. Get the boats to your side. Send a couple of planes with instructions to fly high and just observe troops movements. Send about 50 people with high-powered rifles with instructions to snipe and harass, but not engage directly. Build the defensive perimeter so that 1) it is hard to see from the bridge and 2) shaped in a U around the end of the bridge. If there is any dynamite left, set a few charges on the other side of the bridge, one stick of TNT in a 5-gallon bucket filled with nails camoed it some bushes. Let about 500 of the enemy across, or until they have their RPG's on the bridge, and blow it. Have a Turkey shoot with those that got across, blow the charges across the river, and wait for the cavalry.
 
I dunno...

because if they were marching against my socialist government, I may just join them.

Realistically, with an untrained militia, you can't engage them in a set piece battle. They have better training, leadership (more NCOs, jr. infantry officers), and weaponry (GPMG, mortars). Suggest harrassing to slow movement and interdiction of supplies (typical guerilla warfare). Perhaps even let them enter into part of the city and isolate them for the regulars to destroy. It worked at Stalingrad and in Buenos Aires (failed British Expedition during Napoleonic era).
 
Oh! An easy one!

Burn the city. That'll throw 'em!

If you feel like it, lace the bridge with all 4500 sticks of dy-no-mite. Wait for the invaders to begin marching across...

Personally, I would be more concerned with HOW the invaders landed, and where their transport is now. :D

;)
 
Gary,

I disagree, this is a winnable scinerio. A lot of folk said what I would have, and a lot depends on the exact conditions at the time. ( Remember in 1812 the Brits first tried to land in Virginia and the militia drove em off, the Marylanders were less succesful and D.C. was burned).

Things I disagree with:

1. Using vetrens as work detail. Using these guys as one armed unit with a command structure is essential, hopefully some have "seen the elephant" and will stand fast, or else retreat and REGROUP/ Resist. For the older, less combat experianced ones at least give them a few spare sticks of dynamite with cricket lighters ( not Zippos) and pistols/levers cleaned out from the stores- they are your police/urban "Volksstrum" defenders.

2. Do NOT put snipers on the roofs. This is the first place the enemy will look. instaed have holes put into slanted roofs, third story or up floors, dont have barrel poking out.

3. To blow or not to blow? (the bridge) Depends on many factors: can your side repair it for the counter attack? Is the river fordable?(crossable) etc. Still you could always have one section rigged for command detonation if need be ( overwhelmed only by way of bridge) and the tactics fit. Don't expect a blown bridge to keep out foot troops for very long. Ethier theyll grab a log and paddle accross one by one or build rafts...ethier way expect to be
flanked in short order.

4. What ever you do, do not seperate a hunter with a familiar rifle/scope combonation in favor of any one else. The hunter should know his rifle better than any one else, and on a whole be more effective with it.

Most of the advice was pretty good, rigged trenches etc. There you have it a battle plan TFL style!;)
 
2,500 troops would file the plane full of .223s
Click to expand...

Ah! Someone who's never fired at airplanes before! :D

With full auto fire and all 2500, you will almost certainly down some of them.

Some of them. The rest will fry you.

BTW, you don't have military supply lines to support you. You can't afford to spray full auto. You may get NO planes downed.


this is a winnable scinerio
Click to expand...

Maybe so, but that's not a good use of your resources in this situation. All you need to do is delay. Do that. Be prepared to last ditch defend, which includes mining (but not blowing) the birdge. But the main battle plan should be delay.
 
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