Re: [GZG] FTverse colinies

On Sat, May 10, 2008 at 4:41 PM, Richard Bell <rlbell.nsuid@gmail.com>
wrote:

> Hypothetical invasion of Canada by the US.  As the canadians are
incapable
> of symmetrically opposing the US military, a campaign of guerrilla
warfare
> begins.  Unlike radical muslims, Canada goes the Mandela route and
attacks
> infrastructure.  Hunters with .50 BMG sport rifles start dropping
powerlines
> and, if the opportunity presents itself, put holes in transformers. 
Shaped
> charges are used to blow open pipelines.  Explosives are smuggled into
> underground utility spaces.

Hypothetical.

Unlikely.

And so far-fetched as to be difficult to discuss reasonably.  I was
actually requesting a historical instance.  And I don't mean the
Italian invasion of Ethiopia either--since you've got possibly the
most incompetent army on historical record as the "high tech" force.

You also must realize that this scenario is likely to end up with a
LOT of dead Canadians--and most at the hands of other Canadians who
like being able to heat their homes in the winter.  American forces
will have heat.  Blowing transformers just means a lot of Canadians
freeze solid--urban Canadians are probably no more in touch with their
pioneer roots than their American counterparts.

> American regulars do not bleed to death, they are seldom even shot at,
but
> the US economy bleeds profusely.

You're making a lot of strange assumptions.  For a US invasion of
Canada to be concievable, economic realities would have to have
changed to the point that Canada is (for whatever reason) no longer a
major trading partner.

>> And even when it does work out, it's damned hard on your thousands of
>> unarmored untrained militia boogers.  We tend to stack them up like
>> cordwood at ratios of 10 or 20 to one, or better.  Which may or may
>> not be a commitment a frontier colony can make.
>
> If the unarmored, untrained militia boogers are meeting the advanced
> technotroopers in a  pitched battle, it is not asymmerical warfare.  A
> frontier colony engages in asymmetrical warfare by destroying what the
> invaders have come to take.  If they do not know what it is, they just
> destroy everything not needed for survival.

You kind of assume that the high-tech troops are static popup targets.
 We tend to do a lot of very careful work looking for Bad Guys.  Folks
who aren't as clever as they think they are tend to end up very, very
dead when playing this game.

My brigade's bag in Ramadi was over 3,000 insurgents killed and
captured in the space of nine months, for a cost of 94.  Very few of
the insurgent casualties were from "standing and fighting" like you
seem to imagine.  Many more of them were from trying to plant IEDs in
places where snipers were watching, or their neighbors deciding to rat
them out because they are tired of bombs exploding in the marketplace,
or all the other ways you can get a no-go at the Asymmetric Warfare
Game.  Do you hear about al-Anbar Province being a hotbed of violence
anymore?

You're getting to the point of trying to teach your grandmother to suck
eggs.

John M. Atkinson
-- 
"Thousands of Sarmatians, Thousands of Franks, we've slain them again
and again. We're looking for thousands of Persians."
--Vita Aureliani

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