Small arms vs heavy armor

C

Coinneach

Staff Alumnus
Despite reams of historical data to the contrary, one of the bigots' favorite arguments for the repeal of the Second is that "your rifles would be useless against an armored unit, so what's the point?"

Useless, hm? Ask the Russians. Another point for us, I'd say.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/121699/russia.sml

------------------
"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it."
-- John Hay, 1872
 
Said bigots assume a modern tank is invincible, forgetting that it and its crew must be supplied regularly with ammunition, fuel, food and water. I believe an M1 "Abrahms" tank only carries 40 rounds of ammunition for it's main gun. It consumes fuel at the rate of 4 gallons per mile. I'm told it also has no escape hatch out the bottom so the crew cannot relieve themselves through that portal.

Our modern military gets its supplies from "somewhere else". Those means are vulnerable and more often than not unguarded.

Finally, housing for the dependants of military personnel is centrally located on virtually every military installation. They certainly could become hostages or would require considerable military resources to protect.
 
From an old cypherpunks post, I copied this when I read it with the intention of checking the facts, but never got around to it. Thought it was a good answer though.


----------------------------------------
|>>down the routers or face 10+ years in prison. The government has wisely
|>>previously deprived the ISP's and their employees of owning machine guns
|>>of their own, thus compliance is assured.
|
|Their complience is assured because few ISP owners have Abrams Tanks
|apache atack helicopters, and are fresh out of boot camp.
|
|I always find that argument from pro gun owners stupid
|did anyone think red dawn was a reality?
|
|That any one person would be able to fight against the might of a government
|is a ludicrous thought
|
|ian

Remember the Warsaw getto uprising, remember Afganistan. Tyrants are cowards,
period.
5 percent of the population involved in militant tax protest is extremely
unlikely. The best possible
would be more like .001 percent. But that still is enough.

I remember a manhunt where the badguy had a double barreled 20 gauge. There
are no slug rounds or
buckshot shells available for that gun. Most you find at the store is #4,
more likely #7 1/2. Effective blood letting range is just a little under
a good softball throw. Folks in heavy coats with shooting glasses could
have thrown rocks at this guy untill he gave up. Cops came from
miles around to participate in the seige, and the news reported that
this murderer(true, he was a bad guy) was on a rampage and to stay inside
and lock the doors.

Lesson, one idiot with a near worthless weapon is practically as effective
at initiating civil disturbance as a terrorist cell with nonconventionals.

At .0001 percent, well practiced long range shooters with decent disipline
and a fire plan operating independently could cripple the day to day life
as we know it inside of a few weeks with relatively few shots.

The ATF stormed the Branch Davidians ranch with about 100 troops and air
support, all testamony aside, the empirical evidence that wasn't intentionally
destroyed by the FBI strongly suggests that the first shots fired was at
an unarmed David Koresh from a silenced hk-mp5sd wounding him and killing
his 2 year old daughter from the cab of the truck hauling the body of the
troops in the cattle car trailer. After the first shots marked the beginning
of the engagement, all the troops deployed spraying the entire housing area
of the compound with everything they had, they did manage to wound and kill
some of the adults and children and some of themselves. The BDs also managed
to return some fire, but a close look at the video shot by the news crews
shows no evidence whatsoever of any return fire on the 12 agents in plain
view to the news cameras and under very poor cover while they poured on
the firepower they had available. After the ATF had killed a few women,
children some of each other and expended all of their ordinance, they called for a cease fire, the BD's complied and allowed the shocktroops to retreat and collect their wounded and dead in complete safety. Of course, the rest
is history, the FBI took over and massacred the BDs in about a month putting
the whole issue to bed. The ATF (read tax collectors) had trained for days
for this, they were disiplined government shock troops qualified for the
mission. And they were beaten back, defeated by a dishomongenous bunch of
religious persons living in a communal group who were hardly trained at
all except at the level of being able to bring their guns into play. Their
days before had been spent in work, cooking, eating, reading, teaching,
sewing, cleaning, and other such activities that take up the day in a rural
farm. They had not spent 3 days in intensive drill to repel shock troops
armed to the teeth with the best weapons money can buy loaded with exotic
ammunition not available to the public, but that is what they did. And they did it decisively.

The M1 Abrams tank has its vunerablities, it depends on the presence of
other Abrams tanks to keep the crunchies (ground troops) off of it by hosing
each other down with machine gun fire. While it is true that the Abrams
can move like lightning across all kinds of terrain, it doesn't mean they
don't stop. Once stopped, or trapped, they are certainly vunerable to ground
assault if alone.

The Apache is an excellent weapons system, but even with all the star wars
fancy stuff, it is still a helicopter and all kinds of rabble have found
methods of fighting helicopters effectively enough to bring them down.

Your point that it is a ludicrous thought is well taken, but that doesn't
mean it can't be done. The gov is totally aware of this, hence the ever
mounting attacts on personal liberties and freedoms. "Make people bow low
enough and they will forget what it means to stand."
 
There's an addage: "Armor can seize, but cannot hold." Thus, infantry is needed to secure an area and hence the even older addage, "Infanterie, Koenigen von der Kampf!" or "Infantry, Queen of the Battle!"

(It took me years to figure out that the Queen bit is in reference to the chessboard).

------------------
Vigilantibus et non dormientibus jura subveniunt
 
not to long ago i saw an unarmed man stop a COLUMN of tanks. And many of you saw it too.

I also recall that RUSSIANS, armed with ww1 rifles and molotov cocktails fought the german army and WON the fights for the cities.

I recall that crudely armed viet cong BEAT america's WILL to fight, cause after all.. what was in it for us???

I recall that 200 spartans held off the Persian Army.

I recall numerous cases of one or two gunmen holding scores of law enforcemnt officers at bay.

I recall a handful of rifleman changing history in dallas.

I recall an anarchist with a pistol starting ww1.

I recall similar balakan snipers keeping a major city under siege with little more than hunting rifles.

I recall a general named Custer taking on a buch of naked savages and losing.

I recall Panch Villa, a 2 bit bandit from south of the border tying up 10 thousand US troops.

Geronimo and 4 others tied up 2 thousand US troops for a number of months.

I recall that american idians shot it out with the government wounded knee twice. That battle still isn't over.

i recall the image of a mowhawk indian in war paint with an AK over his head astride a burning cop car in canada.

We the people... noble and humble and righteous as we are.. are capable of some really horrendous, ugly, nasty, and violent things in the defense of our rights and ways of life.

Stopping a tank? You're right WHAT IS THE POINT?

The tanks should NEVER roll. Not here, not ever unless the people directing those tanks is willing to see mayhem on a scale unprecedented in the annals of history.

They stopped the uprising in tiennaman square... can they stop the IDEA of democracy?

Something to think about...

Dr.Rob

---------------------------------------------
 
Rock Paper scissors

A kids game which depending on where you stopped and where your opponent stopped you win or loose there is no trump to win all the time.


Combined Arms


A concept that was been proven since man first went to war, the people who forget it tend to loose.


We don't need a Army or Navy we have the A-Bomb and the B-36 to deliver it.

Thinking along this line got us into Korea…its hard to kill a fly when all you got is a 20lb sledge hammer.

All three illustrate that one system is not the panacea of solutions for all problems.

Armor has its problems too..
They can’t live in there forever.
If they throw a track they're pretty helpless.
A glass bottle some gas and a burning rag can be bad for their health. (In 1948 the Isreali people stood off how many arab tanks with a Kar98 and beer bottle full of gas)
They can’t hear you coming but you can hear and whats more feel them coming.
Its kinda hard to conceal something two meters high 3 meters wide and 5 meters long vs a man.

The only weapons system that can probably accomplish the most with the least support is the infantry man. Sure without support they can take heavy losses, especially when they tangle with a combined arms force. But it has been proven time and again that it is hard for any one other system to eliminate all the infantry easily unless you use an A-Bomb but I thing that’s been discussed before.

The know it alls don’t like to admit it but, you can bomb a country back to the stone age, you still don’t own it until you put a man on the ground with a rifle and the name they give him is Infantry. They also forget that any raghead with a $100,000 stinger can bring down a $20,000,000 aircraft with a pilot that it took 5 years to train behind the controls.



[This message has been edited by Alan B (edited December 16, 1999).]
 
man, where i am from in the Allegheny mountains of PA, a squad could button down the only pass into the upper valleys.

Yea you could fly over but Afganistan has proven that it takes more than hardware to win.

dZ
 
Thank you, Sirs!

I was way depressed earlier on. You lifted my spirits more than I can say.

Very proud to "know" men such as yourselves.

Dr., hope to put your words out on the air in about 20 minutes.
 
geez, lab...

I'm gonna have to figure a way to tune in from work (blushing sligghtly at your attempt to make me famous) but Hey.. thanks those are my words and I'm sticking by them.

Dr.Rob
 
Tip from the VC. Hold out your fist at arm's
length toward a helicopter. If the 'copter is larger than your fist, you can bring it down with small arms fire.

Also, don't forgit the Jews is Warsaw, they had fewer than 100 rifles and pistols during the siege and they held of the Germans for longer than the Polish army, much longer than the Polish army.

------------------
Ne Conjuge Nobiscum
"If there be treachery, let there be jehad!"
 
Good news: irregulars tend to tie up three regulars each.

Bad news: guerillas lose nine or ten to each regular.

I have no desire to ever see combat. However, I am inclined to think that any sufficiently energetic military action would destroy the base of support that feeds the army...so they'd have to tread lightly.

Taking out an insurgent that is know (or his family) is easy.

Taking out the one that no one even knew existed is much tougher.

Which is to say I will be the first casualty, with my big mouth :(

Bottom line: it is possible to win, but what you win might look not at all like what you thought you fought for. It is also possible,likely and probably to lose life,family, limbs, eyes, etc. in the process. I hope we don't start anything that requires me to become basic (lousy) rifleman...
 
Dr. Rob, it was Leonidas (one of the two Spartan kings) and the Royal Bodyguard of 300 Spartans, along with their allies who held the pass at Thermopylae against the Persian Host. Actually, only 298 Spartans died as one suffered a temporary blindness and was led away by his helot and another (like Sir Robin in The Holy Grail) fled! Both were scourned by their fellow Spartans and being thus shamed, manfully redeemed themselves in another battle.

------------------
Vigilantibus et non dormientibus jura subveniunt
 
Armor without Infantry to protect it is helpless in all but open terrain. In close terrain without dismounted Infantry the Armor is in trouble. I remember a fight at Brigade Hill at the National Training Center in '95 where my dismounted platoon of OPFOR fought a 2x2 (2 M1A1s and 2 M2 Bradleys) to a "mexican standoff" We could not come out of the wadis or they had us with thermal sights and coax machingun fire, but they couldn't come in after us or we had them with our short range anti tank weapons (MILES Dragons and Vipers). They eventually withdrew. It would have taken a company or better of dismounted Infantry to dig us out. In another instance we infiltrated a night laager and destroyed 3 M1A1s and a couple of Bradleys and then withdrew. Even with all of the high speed low drag thermal sights they were vulnerable, after 8 days in the "box" they were too tired to stay awake to monitor their thermal sights, and running their engines for warmth and to charge their batteries effectively covered the noise of our dismounted movement.

So do we need anti tank weapons for the founding fathers idea of the purpose of the Second Amendment to be viable in this day and age? No, there are plenty of ways to stop and kill tanks. Almost everyone already has the tools to do it with in their house now. Shovels and strong backs (backhoes make a quicker job of it)! We need small arms to deal with the people who ride in the tanks and who would send the tanks after us.

So possesion of armored vehicle and weapons of mass destruction by the government has not made the Second Amendment an idea whose time has passed. It still protects us from a government run amok.

I'm surprized any of the antis even dusts this old discussion off anymore. I thought the current push was to dehumanize us and convince the sheeple that "they" can look out for everyone better then we can for ourselves.

Jeff
 
At the followon battle of Platea which drove the Persians out of Greece a Persian herald called on the Spartans to retreat and leave the battlefield or be destroyed. The Spartan king in command politely declined. The exasperated Persian then said "Thunk what you do, man. Our soldiers are so nemerous that when they all draw their bows and loose their arrows together they darken the sun!"

The Spartan king replied "Good! We like to fight in the shade!"

The Persian army was detroyed and the Persians never invaded Greece again.
 
Gawd Shortburst! I love reading Herodotus and Thyucidides. Xenophon was fun and Plutarch is well worth the effort too.

Back to the topic, in WWII, Gen. Chuikov studied German tactics and learned to defeat them, he had to break the cooperation between the air cover (Stukas), the panzers, and their grenadiers. What make this viable was the closed city warfare where the extreme proximity of your troops to that of the enemy negated the use of airpower. Panzers were easily ambushed once separated from the infantry. The same lessons applies today.

However, city fighting, in 1999, as in 1943, is just as costly, devasting and deadly. When all is good and done, we're talking rubble heaps and the only existing structures will be the sewers. You can fight all day just to take a room and never conquer it.

Myself, I certainly hope we never have another war civil war. The first one demonstrated the efficiency of Americans killing Americans. Nobody does it better to us than ourselves.

------------------
Vigilantibus et non dormientibus jura subveniunt
 
Lessee: We're in accord that a tank without infantry is called a "crispy critter".

We know that folks who can hit six-inch targets at 400 to 600 yards can most likely hit people at those ranges--and with shots from inside a building the shootee and his friends have a problem figuring where to shoot back.

We know that "informal fighters" can be anywhere and cause problems anywhen. "The troops" are going to be at a sleep disadvantage--for a long, long time.

You don't need a gun to derail a supply or troop train. Or screw up an electric-power system. Or mess up a water supply.

Somebody actually thinks "Government" can control people beyond what The People consider tolerable? Obviously hasn't read Sun Tzu. Sounds like a need for psychiatric assistance, or maybe a gift certificate good for a home visit from Jack Kevorkian...

:), Art
 
Rat, sometimes the regulars loose more than the guerillas. As was the case in the Russian [our ally] Finn war Nov 30 39 Stalin sent in 1.2 million troops, 1500 tanks and 3000 aircraft.

The finns 400,000 total opfor, 96 planes, the front lines held by skiers with rifles.

By the end the Russkies had lost 1600 tanks and about 400 taken out with moletov cocktails,using a gasoline sulfuric acid mix, self ignited by breaking on tank by means of a vial of potassium-chlorate and sugar solution. When the fat lady sang;

The Finns lost 25,000 and 44k wounded
The Reds lost 250,000, 1600 tanks, 725 planes. This was a 10-1 infavor of the irregulars.

The Reds had a naiton of over 100 million and the FINNS had about the same number as NRA members.

With room to manuever a small determined force can outlast and attrition a larger foce. The warsaw gehtto uprising lasted over 120 day before submiting, and that was against the most powerfull army this earth had seen.

For more recent battles look at this:GROZNY, Russia (AP) - Grim evidence of Russia's first foray into the Chechen capital lay all around Thursday: the bodies of at least 115 federal troops, many mangled and burned, strewn in a Grozny square near shattered tanks and charred personnel carriers.

Fierce rebel resistance on Wednesday handed the Russian military what appeared to be its worst defeat since it entered the breakaway republic in September. This Associated Press reporter walked through the wreckage in Minutka Square on Thursday, counting the dead. Seven burned Russian tanks and eight armored personnel carriers were also seen.

The assault was the first time Russian ground forces drove so deep into the capital, and the bloody result was a reminder of the 1994-96 Chechen conflict, when rebels desperately defended Grozny and inflicted a heavy toll on the superior Russian forces.

It was not clear if the Russian armored group was the spearhead of what was to have been a major attack on Grozny or a reconnaissance mission to test the rebels' defenses. The Russians may also have penetrated further into the city than they intended.



[This message has been edited by oberkommando (edited December 17, 1999).]
 
The way *I* see it, a tank is only as bullet proof as the guys above it in the chain of command... If it came to war, why the heck would we be shooting at tanks instead of politicians?

I studied guerrilla warfare a bit on the side when I was in AFROTC, for entertainment purposes. It's my opinion that just about all of the techniques a regular army uses to defeat a guerrilla force are useless when applied to one's own territory, and doubly so when one's territory's food exports are the only reason the world isn't starving. Yeah, SURE they're going to bomb the midwest with agent orange, and then force the populace to collect in refugee camps to avoid starvation, leaving the guerrillas exposed. SURE they're going to bomb their own infrastructure to destroy the economy they parasiticly feed upon!

We won't have to shoot them, we'll just starve them out. Don't forget to store food next to those bullets, so you can last longer than they can!

------------------
Sic semper tyranus!
 
You guys are a kick! Try some REALLY small arms and see what happens to the concept, like, the M-1 pay telephone, for instance.

"Help, help! I just saw 20 guys in pickup trucks ambush a tank crew! They killed them all and stole the tank! You gotta stop them, they're coming after me, now!"

Or how about "I saw a bunch of guys in a Bradley talking to some Mexicans down on the border, then they loaded up the Bradley with lots of bags of white powder and drove off!"

About 10,000 such calls in a week and the whole operation would come to a screeching halt. Without firing a shot!

Consider cars as a weapon against infantry. Somebody gonna respond by shutting down the highways, firing on any car that moves, or whatever? I don't think so.
 
Don't underestimate the ability of Army to do damage first and think later. To a tank driver, this town he's in is one rebel base. He might not know that another thousand towns are getting identical treatment at the same time...by the time food runs out and helearns that some other corps leveled his own home, the place will already be flat and smoldering.

Hope we don't start. I suspect those few policicians with brains as well as venom realize they stand to lose more by pushing people into a war (they have big mouths too, just like I do)...pity most are to arrogant to realize the consequences till it is too late.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top