Re: [GZG] FTverse colinies

On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 5:43 PM, Enzo de Ianni <enzodeianni@tiscali.it>
wrote:

>  >Seriously, let me know when you come up with a circumstance where
>  >untrained militias managed to inflict a loss on an able enemy.  You
>  >might be able to come up with a handful of limited circumstances
where
>  >tactical defeats of isolated outposts occured due to failures on the
>  >part of the high-tech opponent.  Name a campaign where this happened
>  >with anything approaching regularity.
>
>  Vietnam? :)

Wrong.	Flat-out wrong.

1) At no time did any Vietnamese unit defeat any American unit on the
battlefield.
2) The PAVN was well-trained and equipped with artillery and armor by
the Soviets and the Chinese.

Besides which, the strategic and political failures in Vietnam had a
myriad of causes.  The one thing we can definitely rule out is the
idea that the US used insufficient force for the job.  It used a great
deal of force very, very badly.

>  Both against line units and elite ones, on the move or in prepared
positions?

Name an instance.

>  I would rate the US armed forces as quite good as a "high tech
>  forces" (but I see RIchard Bell already thought of that example).
>  I could go to any length on that, if you prefere.
>  And, without  intention of being rude, we could talk about Iraq, too.

Again, name an instance of a battlefield defeat.  Come with date,
designation of unit involved, and place.

But like you said (and I snipped), the real questions behind it have a
lot more to do with asking what are the realities in your particular
universe of space travel/transportation.

Here's a novel one I doubt anyone's asked yet:	Will the occupied
populace even care?  More than a few European colonies changed hands
without guerilla warfare occuring, simply because the native populace
could barely tell one set of whites from another, and even the
colonists really didn't notice much of a difference beside the
language of the tax collectors.

We are also presuming that the campaigns will be conducted in full
media glare rather like a modern campaign, and fought by democracies
that deeply care about things like world opinion and whether or not
their populace is offended by pictures of insurgents hung by the neck.
 Would international media be able to influence a campaign quite as
heavily? I suspect not, given travel times that prohibit the 'near
real time' coverage.

John
-- 
"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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