Quote:
Originally Posted by Neal5x5
I grew up in northern Utah in the 1980s, and yes, Mormons believe in preparedness but some of these people were hardcore doomsday preppers. One friend's family didn't have the usual mound of food storage, but they did have an impressive collection of firearms. I asked him about that and he said that when the "fit hit the shan" they'd just use the firearms to "trade up".  |
Lets look at that idea in terms of a military operation. "trading up" would be classified as a raid, or an assualt if the raid were on a fortified structure or a place with a fence and strongpoints. Military units are judged on Firepower, Mobility, Communications, and Leadership.
Firepower - Every family out there has got some sort of rifle. Many have AR15s and more have hunting rifles with scopes (lets not forget that the greatest US sniper was using a winchester M70 hunting rifle and greatest infantry was using a .30-06 bolt action lee enfield or springfield. Assuming that this collection of firearms includes and equally impressive number of magazines and ammuniton as well as people to use them, they may have an edge in firepower. The problem is that if they go raiding, they won't know what the other side has until they engage them.
Mobility - Just having a large amount of guns and ammo does you know good if you can't employ them. I'm not just talking about hitting what your aiming at. Moving means that you need to know how to supress a target, what good fields of fire are. You have to know how to isolate one side of a building so you can move to it, how to breach windows and doors when the are unexpectly locked, barracaded so on. Also, the attacker to defender ratio should be 3 to 1. Also, the attacker tends to take casualties, so if you have 9 guys, lose 2 in one fight, it means the next house you aren't going to be able to lay the same base of fire or have the same punch in your assualt element. Trying to take one house with one squared away former infantryman could result in a disaster. If he kills one in the group and wounds two or three you're all done. Lets not forget that if it gets this bad, there are no hospitals and "medevac" waiting to swoop in to get you to a doctor. Wounds are probably going to be fatal. In this sort of setting, the defender, behind cover, has a big advantage over the attacker. Also, there is no replacement system, so once the group loses memembers it likely isn't going to get fresh recruits.
Communication - Has this group practiced? Do they have their battle drills down? Do they know hand/arm signals, the ability to lift/shift fire on signal? Do they have radios and have them practiced employing them? Communication in battle is the first thing to go, and if you are on a complex mission like a raid, losing communication leads to time wasted and time wasted under fire leads to casualties.
Leadership - There are many fine leaders in these forums. Many of us are military veterans. I can see from the unit crests, information in the posts and comments that there are crusty NCOs that I would glady have in my company. Do the leaders in this group have the guts to face the losses and to motivate the survivors to continue? In 2005, my cavalry regiment took 18 killed and about triple that wounded. It wasn't recieved well, to say the least. Imagine how that would impact if it were family memebers being lost. Leaders have to be capable of organizing logistics, planning operations, making fast and timely decisions. In a pressure situtation with low food, little sleep, its a nightmare like ranger school or being at NTC. I know first hand that times like this are when even good leaders are near their limits.
I'm not saying in any way that you're a bad guy Neal. Please don't take my post the wrong way. If things were bad enough, I may find myself needing to patrol to protect my fields, my home, my family whatever. Just on a military priciple raiding for food is a dangerous proposition. Anyone else have thoughts on the strategy of small groups raiding fortified positions or homes?