re: US Military Vs Civilians

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Good god, why in the world would you want to take and hold anything? sit on your well stocked bases and wait for the grocery stores to empty and then then turn the lights out, it would be over in 5-7 days.

The biggest problem would be administratively processing all those wanting to surrender.

And can we please not compare modern American civilians to the North Vietnamese of the 60s, you know the guys (and girls) that fought the Japanese, French and Americans. Probably a little more salty than an modern American Patriot.

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That is also pretty idiotic. Sitting on bases for a few weeks? They aren't that well-stocked, for starters. And they would have to quickly turn to some sort of civilian logistics (farms, food production, etc.) for food as well. They don't operate in a vacuum. They'd have to occupy key logistics points all over the country very quickly, and a couple hundreds thousand armor and infantry guys aren't going to get it done in a country the size of the U.S., especially with as many people as we have if the population is truly motivated and turned on them. They'd be lucky to control a quarter of the country.

You can't assume that the military wouldn't switch sides.

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They'd be lucky to control a quarter of the country.


You DONT have to control anything, ever read Lord of the Flies?

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The military doesn't have anywhere close to the numbers to control anything meaningful beyond 20 to 25% of the country, and that's being generous. Important logistics nodes, bridges, communications centers, on and on and on. The country is far too big for for that.

Think about Chicago: you'd need at least a full BCT just to control important spots in and around O'Hare. That's without getting into all of the highways, expressways, huge distribution warehouses, refineries, bridges, railroad hubs, airports big (MDW and ORD) and small, ports, server farms, and on and on just in Chicago metro. You're probably looking at at least 2, and more likely 3, full divisions just to control important points of contact just in Chicago metro. Oh, and the closest fighting formation is 500 miles away at Fort Campbell. A quarter of your entire combat power required just to hold the key points in one large metropolitan area.

The military just isn't even close to big enough - and there aren't anywhere near enough air or ISR assets - to try to take more than a part of the country unless it resorted to nuclear weapons. It would need to scale 5X to 10X to actually have a shot.

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Exactly, the idea that a bunch of inbred country bumpkins could stop trained professional and very well equipped soldiers because they hunt and shoot all the time is a fricking pipe dream.

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Yeah, what were those arse holes in 1776 thinking?

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A lot of military would jump ship and side with the citizens.

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Exactly. All of these American soilders are from America with family and friends back home. Do you think they will just follow orders and shoot kill other soilder's families while at the same time worried if their own family is ok?? What do you think they are going to do when their own family or friends are attacked by the military sworn to defend them? Probably 80% of the military will jump sides immediately or just flat out refuse the orders.

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The "rules" we placed on our military placed them in a very unfair disadvantage. Doubtful those would ever be put into place in such a scenario as a citizen uprising.

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What rules? Don't kill civilians?

I mean even if you say you will take the gloves off... We projected that we would need a kill ratio of 10:1 to win in Vietnam. I'm pretty sure we got close to that and still couldn't gain control.

Now in the US that would translate to a kill ratio of 30:1 if we are talking 60 mil resistance fighters. And that is probably drastically underestimating what you would need just like in Vietnam.

I'm comparing to Vietnam because it involves resistance fighters mixed in with normal citizens and guerilla warfare

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More than 15,000 active-duty, Air Force Reserve members and civilians make up Barksdale's workforce. About 44 B-52 Stratofortress aircraft are also assigned to the wing.

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OT baws would have that air base taken over in the first week, only problem would be getting the rest of the country to target their nearest air force base asap. the Navy would still frick our shite up tho, but at least we would have some retired pilots with bombers to fight back

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Ok let's slightly modify the question.

New scenario... Our military is completely incapacitated. Zero military or military assets.

Could 2 mil Russian soldiers and the Russian military take over the US?

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Still no. It is logistics and people. 2 million cannot control 300 million.

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Just like they did in Iraq or Afghanistan?

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People keep bringing this and Vietnam up but I'm assuming in the OP's scenario that it's a total war. Had the we fought a total war in Iraq or Afghanistan we could have literally leveled everything but the Office of Tourism ("See the ruins!").

Political considerations, not lack of capability, are the reasons those countries still exist.

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Still no. It is logistics and people. 2 million cannot control 300 million.

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Agree. It was actually a set up question, if you say no to Russians taking over America but yes to Americans taking over America then you are going to have to demonstrate how we have that much of an advantage over the Russian army in this type of war.

Aircraft carriers don't help you