OT: Rhodesian War Resources

[HorseSoldier]

Conventional wisdom holds that counterinsurgency forces need to maintain a 10:1 force ratio. The Rhodesians maintained something like a 1:1 ratio and won every fight for fifteen years.

There may be something to the conventional wisdom, since up at the big picture/strategic level the Rhodesians got trounced. (And I say that as a huge fan of Bushwar history and a great admirer of the Rhodesian security forces.) Their opponents were brutal and incompetent, but when it was all said and done the Rhodesian Security Forces were unable to hold back the tide and the guerrillas were able to do serious damage to the economy.

Perhaps worse than that, the guerrillas were eventually able to strike at the real center of gravity for Rhodesia -- the rural white populace -- and despite serious government disincentives to leaving the country, White Flight became a major problem.

There are a number of good Rhodesian memoirs and books describing the experience of being a farmer or rancher during the war and experiencing guerrilla attacks. Getting shot at is never fun, but I can't imagine the stress and toll it takes when you're rolling out of bed in the middle of the night to fire back at guys lobbing RPG rounds at your house while your wife and kids jam FAL mags for you and knowing that if you don't make it through to dawn you're all dead. Probably not bad stuff to read up on if you're GM'ing T2K and want to get into the mindset of rural Polish farmers or similar.

More generally, I think of the Bush War probably being how a lot of war looks as governments post-2000 start trying to put things back together, fighting against warlords or groups like New America with a technology/logistics edge, but not a huge one. If I ever get around to writing up ideas I've had about the MilGov/New America frontier in the Wyoming/Montana sort of area it will draw a lot on Rhodesian sources.