Re: [SG2] weapons

--- Brian B <greywanderer987@yahoo.com> wrote:

> of a Low Budget defensive strategy, and considering

The problem with a Low Budget defensive strategy is
that it no longer works.  Hasn't worked for 50 years
and isn't going to start working in the future when
Real armies have microchips in every bullet. 
Technology wins fights, plain and simple.  Look at
every fight the US has been in since 1940:  Superior
communications, superior fire support, superior
mechanization win the day.  See also Israel vs. Arabs.

Hell, in Vietnam the political and senior military
leadership made every possible mistake, the terrain
was perfect for guerilla warfare, the PAVN had both
the Soviets and the Chinese Communists funnelling
billions of dollars worth of weapons in as fast as
they could, and the US Army and USMC still won every
fight they got into, still ran around most of the
country at will, and still killed over a million
Vietnamese Communists.	In fact, the US even managed
to destroy the NLF infrastructure completely in 1968. 
The only thing resembling 'even fights' were those
involving 5-6 times as many Vietnamese as Americans.  

And the only interesting war games scenarios involving
low-tech vs. high-tech require you to artificially
take away much of the advantages of the high-tech
force in superior C&C and superior fire support, plus
throw in such grotesque numbers that it's ridiculous.

The other major factor is that technology of weapons
is a factor of budget, and so is training.  If you
can't afford guns, you generally can't afford proper
training regimes either.  Not always (cf Australia,
Canada), but usually.  Training is bloody expensive,
and if you can't afford to keep your troops in the
field firing off their weapons they aren't going to be
any damn good (again, classic examples are Israel vs.
Arabs and US vs. Practically Everyone We've Fought
[except for the Germans]).

Now, apply this to SF colonial warfare.  Your
very-expensive high-tech brigade battle group or
division task force (the largest formation mentioned
in the official GZG timeline) can beat 10-20 times
it's own numbers in low tech garbage troops.  Not an
unrealistic estimation given the modern examples of
Iraq vs US, Israel vs the Arabs, and US vs. Chinese
Communists.  Given a choice between raising 15
Brigades of People's Militia and knowing they aren't
worth a damn or getting together 2-3 brigades of
Regulars and then keeping them in the field 4-6 months
a year so they get very, very, very good, what is
anyone gifted with at least the ration of brains
normally given by God to little white mice going to
choose?  And what are we going to use for our (limited
by shipping requirements) expeditionary forces? 
Militia might be fine for fending off pirates or
somesuch, but without a modicum of serious training
and a commitment to equip them with modern weaponry
they aren't going to do much more.

John

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