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asymetric warfare



 
 
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  #21  
Old December 18th 03, 01:09 PM
Michael Ash
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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  
Old December 18th 03, 02:15 PM
Arved Sandstrom
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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  
Old December 18th 03, 02:31 PM
Timothy Eisele
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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  
Old December 18th 03, 02:54 PM
Karl M. Syring
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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  
Old December 18th 03, 02:55 PM
Karl M. Syring
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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  
Old December 18th 03, 03:29 PM
Simon Morden
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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  
Old December 18th 03, 05:36 PM
phil hunt
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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.

--
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people who openly support the RIAA" -- comment on Wikipedia
(Email: , but first subtract 275 and reverse
the last two letters).


  #28  
Old December 18th 03, 05:52 PM
Richard Bell
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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  
Old December 18th 03, 06:47 PM
Alan Minyard
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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
  #30  
Old December 18th 03, 06:52 PM
Derek Lyons
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ess (phil hunt) wrote:
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?


The most sensible strategy is not to get involved in such a war to
start with.

I think one strategy would be to use large numbers of low cost
cruise missiles (LCCM). The elements of a cruise missile are all
very simple, mature technology, except for the guidance system.
Modern computers are small and cheap, so guidance systems can be
made cheaply.


Guidance systems depend on *much* more than simply their computers.
You also need the inertial components, or their analogs, and *those*
are going to be hard to obtain in large quantities, especially at any
useful accuracy level.

snipped various fanciful uses
Many of these depend on the West not deploying something it's
exceedingly capable at; Electronic warfare and countermeasures.

Faster weapon system design mewans it could
"get inside the decision curve" of Western arms industries, because
by the time they've produced a weapon to counter the low-cost
weapon, the next generation of low-cost weapon is there.


Problem is, the Western powers can get inside this curve faster than
the medium nation can. The factories, power grid, etc of the medium
nation can be taken out within a few weeks to months via manned
bombers, or our own cruise missiles. Vital components produced
overseas can be stopped via blockade.

D.
--
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Corrections, comments, and additions should be
e-mailed to , as well as posted to
sci.space.history and sci.space.shuttle for
discussion.
 




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