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#21
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In article ,
Simon Morden wrote: Which is what I would suggest. No country could currently defeat the USA in a stand-up fight. So disperse your army globally and take out US-interest soft targets: embassies, companies, tourists, registered shipping, anything that flies a US flag. The losses would be sickening, and it makes me nauseous to think about the scenario. Especially if army elements managed to get on US soil. Well, don't forget that only a very tiny percentage of any regular army will be composed of people fanatical enough to become suicide bombers. Your four-million strong Elbonian People's Happy Army will turn into a handful of suicide bombers and a whole bunch of deserters if you tried that strategy. Not to say it may not be the best use of that army, but I don't think it would be that effective. |
#22
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"phil hunt" wrote in message
. .. What would be sensible strategies/weapons for a middle-ranking country to employ if it thought it is likely to be involved in a war against the USA or other Western countries, say in the next 10 years? [ SNIP ] Fight an insurgency, and do it well. Plan for it, and train for it. Pre-position necessary equipment, designate cells that people will belong to (this could be done in such a way that even the people doing the designation wouldn't know the specific composition of such cells, how the cell members get into touch if the balloon goes up, or any of that). Move supplies and weapons as soon as balloon goes up - that way, even if there is some compromise, the stuff is no longer at A but is at B. And only the cell members get to do the moving of the stuff. Incidentally, the other Western countries *are* middle-ranking countries, so this is really a "how do we defend against the US" question. Under those circumstances I think one simply does not attempt conventional warfare - not in the time frame you suggest. You'd lose everything you have. You allow yourself to be occupied, then you start making life bad. Given my suggestions, the weapons I would use are not dissimilar to what the Iraqi insurgents are using. Except I'd expect it to be done better. And it could be done much better. Leave the armour alone - go after the supply line with command-detonated mines. Screw shooting down an Apache - mortar an airfield with transport a/c on it. Use snipers that are actually proficient. Ambush foot patrols. Destroy infrastructure. Etc etc. AHS |
#23
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In rec.arts.sf.science Michael Ash wrote:
In article , Simon Morden wrote: Which is what I would suggest. No country could currently defeat the USA in a stand-up fight. So disperse your army globally and take out US-interest soft targets: embassies, companies, tourists, registered shipping, anything that flies a US flag. The losses would be sickening, and it makes me nauseous to think about the scenario. Especially if army elements managed to get on US soil. Well, don't forget that only a very tiny percentage of any regular army will be composed of people fanatical enough to become suicide bombers. Your four-million strong Elbonian People's Happy Army will turn into a handful of suicide bombers and a whole bunch of deserters if you tried that strategy. Not to say it may not be the best use of that army, but I don't think it would be that effective. Which is why the ideal complement to this strategy would be the intensive development of a really effective brainwashing technology. Once your amoral dictatorship has the ability to really deeply convince people on a wholesale basis that the regime is worth dying for, then you're in business. Especially since this will have the useful side benefit of greatly improving your hold on power with the general populace, if you can apply similar technology to them as well. This suggests that, rather than worrying over a few piddly little nukes or chemical weapons (which are not really useful for aggression by a small country anyway, since they could never be actually used against any western nation without inviting the absolute destruction of the user), we should really be paying a lot of attention to countries that are spending a lot of effort on making advances in brainwashing methods and techniques. -- Tim Eisele |
#24
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"Pete" wrote in message ...
"phil hunt" wrote in message . .. What would be sensible strategies/weapons for a middle-ranking country to employ if it thought it is likely to be involved in a war against the USA or other Western countries, say in the next 10 years? Instead of trying to build *up* to defeat a western/Nato/US opponent, the only possible solution would be to build *down*, and grow self aware, mobile, small scale explosives. A 20 year old with a backpack full of C-4, as is done now. Now,please. Using more dogs to sniff them out would work nicely, but given the religious affiliation of the bomb carriers, miniature pigs would be better. To lower costs, you could even train rats(http://www.apopo.org/whyrats). Karl M. Syring |
#25
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"Pete" wrote in message ...
"phil hunt" wrote in message . .. What would be sensible strategies/weapons for a middle-ranking country to employ if it thought it is likely to be involved in a war against the USA or other Western countries, say in the next 10 years? Instead of trying to build *up* to defeat a western/Nato/US opponent, the only possible solution would be to build *down*, and grow self aware, mobile, small scale explosives. A 20 year old with a backpack full of C-4, as is done now. Now,please. Using more dogs to sniff them out would work nicely, but given the religious affiliation of the bomb carriers, miniature pigs would be better. To lower costs, you could even train rats(http://www.apopo.org/whyrats). Karl M. Syring |
#26
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Michael Ash wrote:
Well, don't forget that only a very tiny percentage of any regular army will be composed of people fanatical enough to become suicide bombers. Your four-million strong Elbonian People's Happy Army will turn into a handful of suicide bombers and a whole bunch of deserters if you tried that strategy. Not to say it may not be the best use of that army, but I don't think it would be that effective. Of course. I 've no idea of your background, but AFAIK suicide terrorism is very much a minority sport. November 17, IRA, INLA, Bader-Minhoff, and most of the worlds' terrorist/ex-terrorist organisations much rather killed their 'enemies' than themselves. A bombing campaign by a cell is a much better use of human resources. If the Elbonians weren't a bunch of brainwashed dictator-run conscripts, but a professional nationalist army who were dedicated to supporting their government against external aggressors, who saw the futility of getting mown down by US airpower, who absconded with man-pack SAMs and explosives and decided to take the fight to the capitalist pigs foam slaver rant The question was how would a middling country take on a super power. There's no reason to assume the 'middling country' is begging to be invaded, its army complete pants, and that its citizens don't love their country as much as you love yours. Simon Morden -- __________________________________________________ ______ Visit the Book of Morden at http://www.bookofmorden.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk *Thy Kingdom Come - a brief history of Armageddon* out now from Lone Wolf |
#27
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On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 06:08:14 -0600, tscottme wrote:
phil hunt wrote in message ... Crewed by Alien Space Bats, presumably? European or African alien space bats? Neither. But I suppose they could be Europans. -- "It's easier to find people online who openly support the KKK than people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia (Email: , but first subtract 275 and reverse the last two letters). |
#28
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In article ,
phil hunt wrote: On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 04:15:51 GMT, Kevin Brooks wrote: Then one wonders why those very same nations usually end up trying to buy the products produced by those "slow-moving, bloated" western defense contractors. Because they are more technologically advanced. Some technologies, for example high performance jet engines, require a large industrial base to make. The sort of technologies I'm talking about are ones that can potentially be produced a lot more cheaply, for example by adapting mass-produced (but nevertheless highly sophisticated) consumer products. Any medium-sized power should be able to produce embedded computer control systems. I do not know about anti-ship missiles, or anti-aircraft missiles, but an anti-vehicle (except tank) missile that combines a portable TV, a pen sized camera, two diode laser TXRX sets, an RC aircraft on steroids, and a six mile spool of optical fibre should be possible. While hardly a threat to tanks, if they were all available in Iraq, coalition casualties might have unpalatable numbers. The users lofts it over the hard cover that he is hiding behind and uses its camera to find a target and then dives the missile into it. Probably only a few thousand dollars worth of parts. |
#29
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On 18 Dec 2003 08:31:14 -0500, Timothy Eisele wrote:
In rec.arts.sf.science Michael Ash wrote: In article , Simon Morden wrote: Which is what I would suggest. No country could currently defeat the USA in a stand-up fight. So disperse your army globally and take out US-interest soft targets: embassies, companies, tourists, registered shipping, anything that flies a US flag. The losses would be sickening, and it makes me nauseous to think about the scenario. Especially if army elements managed to get on US soil. Well, don't forget that only a very tiny percentage of any regular army will be composed of people fanatical enough to become suicide bombers. Your four-million strong Elbonian People's Happy Army will turn into a handful of suicide bombers and a whole bunch of deserters if you tried that strategy. Not to say it may not be the best use of that army, but I don't think it would be that effective. Which is why the ideal complement to this strategy would be the intensive development of a really effective brainwashing technology. Once your amoral dictatorship has the ability to really deeply convince people on a wholesale basis that the regime is worth dying for, then you're in business. Especially since this will have the useful side benefit of greatly improving your hold on power with the general populace, if you can apply similar technology to them as well. This suggests that, rather than worrying over a few piddly little nukes or chemical weapons (which are not really useful for aggression by a small country anyway, since they could never be actually used against any western nation without inviting the absolute destruction of the user), we should really be paying a lot of attention to countries that are spending a lot of effort on making advances in brainwashing methods and techniques. This has already been done. They call it "religion". Al Minyard |
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