Red Dawn II

[David Scott]

Here's a scenario for you:

Armed forces of a foreign nation have landed on US soil, and a battalion of their infantry is marching toward your county seat, intending to depose the local government and take control. They will arrive in 12 hours; the US Army says a mixed division of infantry, air cavalry and armor will be there in 24 hours.

The invaders number about 2,500; they are carrying Chinese-made AK47s and grenades. They have a couple dozen RPGs. They are marching boldly down a four-lane highway through hilly country, partly farmland and partly wooded. A few miles outside town, the highway crosses a wide, swift-flowing river via a suspension bridge. When they get to your town, the first thing they'll see is residential subdivisions.

The county commissioners have asked you to organize the resistance. The call to action has been put out, and you find yourself in command of the following:

200 people with shotguns.
300 people with scoped, bolt-action hunting rifles.
200 people with lever-action rifles.
150 people with AR-15s, AKs, SKSes, and FN/FALs.
150 people with assorted handguns.
500 military veterans who want to help but are not armed.
One guy who runs a construction company, offering the use of his heavy equipment and the 4500 sticks of dynamite he has in stock.
Five private pilots with single-engine planes. Two are crop dusters.
20 people with boats moored along the river.

You have plenty of vehicles and gasoline, and all the stores in the area have offered as much ammo as you can use, and anything else you can think of. You have about one cell phone for every five people, and 200 FRS walkie-talkies with about a 2 mile range.

All 1500+ of your troops have gathered in the school gym to await your orders. What do you do? What orders do you give?

[BigG]

:rolleyes: Dude, you got wa-ay too much time on your hands.

[David Scott]

Hey, what's more important than saving our homes from invading troops? I forgot to mention that these troops are from the People's Republic of Moronia. They believe that their leader, Emperor Grand Field Marhsal His Royal Highness Schmucko The First, is the reincarnation of their national god, Guuf-Baal, and they are coming to put a stop to our unclean, demonic practices like eating ice cream, driving pickup trucks, and allowing women to walk around with their earlobes uncovered. :)

[KSFreeman]

The invaders marching to enslave you will be wearing city police, look like you and have a legal warrant to confiscate your guns.

[Jeff White]

David,
I don't know of any army in the world that would be armed and equipped the way you describe. 2500 is closer to brigade or regimental strength then battalion. Where are their supporting arms and what are their capabilites? How did they get to the good ole USA? Airdrop? Amphibious landing? Smuggled in trucks across the Mexican or Canadian border?

Are there other bridges or fords between the Moronian forces and your town?

The easy answer is to blow the bridge at let the river keep them out.

Jeff

[stickman]

as described, i'd say that your invaders are toast. w/o armor or air support i think the members of your local sporting clays club could take them

peace and all that

stick

[CBlackjr]

Blow the bridge. When they finaly get to the other side if they do at all then:

First of forget about the planes. 2,500 troops would file the plane full of .223s. Although it would be nice to be able to drop dynomite it would work for long.

The people with han guns and shot guns need to take up short range defensive positons. But these people have to be mobile. If they stay in one spot all it will take is a couple of gernades to kill a ton of friendlys.

With dynamite one would need to be able to boobytrap a large area and be able to set it off remotely as soons as the enemy is in position.

Once the dynamite is set up (make the noncombatens do this) get the non-comatents out of town tell them to use some of the cars just get them out. The rest of the cars would be best used( I think for quick hit and runs inside the town. Put people with shotguns in the cars and put as much armor on the car as possible. take about 25-50 rifle shooters and place them inside the town at stertegic position where each sniper could defend each other.

For the rest of the shotgun and pistol people put them in the buildings to help protect the nipers and kill any enemy that tries to enter the building for protection from the snipers.

take about 250 scoped rifles and 100 ar shooters cut the groups in half and place them towards the northeast and southeast, assuming the eneym is coming from the east. keep them out as fars as they will have the enemy come inbetween the north and south groups but not so far that they could not close up and engagde the enemy in a timely manner.

Once the emeny has come between the north and south groups set of some dynomite and come within range so the enemy is in a crossfire. The AR-15 shooters would be better covering the back side so the enemy would npot suprise the north and south groups if they manage to out flank our good guys.

Keep setting of more and more dynamite as the enemy as they get closer. Hopeful everythin has gone good and the enemy general is an idiot because I am sure there is a way to destroy any of our plans.

Once the enemy has entered the town have everyone close in on the town. Kill any enemy with an rpg first and then any officers if identifiable.

I think this plan is a crap shoot but I don't know much about convential tactics except if you don't have conventional weapons you don't fight a conventional war.

BTW I am do not know anything about these types of tactics I just though it would be fun to respond to this post.

You may now tear my plan apart.

Or could you just load up a large strip of freeway and destroy as soon as their on top of it. thenmop up thye rest wit ar and scoped rifles.

[Jeff White]

Well, 12 hours marching time at 3.5 KPH divided by 1.6 puts them about 26.5 miles from town. How many more miles is it from the river to the town?

Looks to me like you could destroy the bridge, move all the boats to your side of the river and wait for the Army. If the river is too wide and fast to ford without the bridge, they'd be hard pressed to get a credible force to the other side before the professionals arrived.

Your pilots could keep an eye on them without getting in small arms or RPG range. If they don't have any logistics with them, they'll have to stop for water and rest at the river anyway. They'll also be kind of hungry at the end of that 12 hour forced march.

Some security forces between the river and the town in case they do manage to cross the river will force them to deploy into a tactical formation and this will slow them down considerably.

Even if you just dropped one span of the bridge, they'd be hours rigging a crossing, especially if you covered it with sniper fire.

That's my plan, drop one span of the bridge, cover the obstacle I've just created with fire and let them stack up into an easy ICM or MK 82 Rockeye target on the far side of the river. It'd be a turkey shoot once the Army arrived.

Jeff

[David Scott]

Good so far, guys, you seem to realize that some of the stuff I threw in was red herrings ("Communism was just a Red herring" -- Tim Curry, as the butler in "Clue"). I do have some specific stuff in mind, though. I'll post it here later this weekend, give you all a chance to expand on it.

Clues:

If you were one of the 1100 armed volunteers, and the leader said, "I've got 500 military vets here, raring to go, but they have no weapons," what's the first thing that would come to your mind?

Never put all your eggs in one basket.

The right tool for the right job?

It's agreed you should blow the bridge, but when?

[CWL]

How could a brigade that badly organized & led get on US soil? The last time anyone marched out in the open without total air superiority was in Kuwait, and look what happened to them!

Not that this would ever happen in real life anywhere, let alone in the USA as you described it. But if it did and the enemy forces had no HMGs, MMGs, armored recon vehicles and artillery support.
You only need to delay 12 hours? (24 hours minus the 12-hours march time)

We can do this real simple.

DONT BLOW THE BRIDGE! Save this as last-ditch because you will need it for when the USArmy regulars and heavy equiptment come later to repel the beach head. I'm assuming you want to save the town for logistic reasons.

If they're really going to be marching thru enemy country in column packing small arms, undispersed, with no scouts and not having "confiscated" a few dozen trucks:

1) Use the construction equiptment to dig defenses on top of hills on both sides of the road to shoot them down in crossfire & defilade with your scoped riflemen & up to 1/2 of your battle-rifle equiped men. Think trench warfare against an inferior enemy, use your range advantage to pick them off from 1000-500 yards, they'll probably never even get close.

2) Have fall-back positions dug-in on the reverse-slope of these same hills just in case they manage to get past your first line on the hilltops. More assault rifles, lever guns and some shotgunners here. This will cover your possible retreat as well as devastate any attempts to overrun your positions (I'll refrain from explaining the benefits of "plunging fire")

3) Knock down the trees & use the woods as your rallying point for your forces in #1 & #2 above. Use the woods to slow down & harry remaining enemy forces. Dig defenses in two lines, one just at edge of woodline and second 100 yards inside the woods, use your shotgunners & lever actions here since they're useful for defense & short range action.

4) Use airplanes to scout enemy activity.

5) Use unarmed vets as work crew, they'll listen to directions and are used to working togther. Send John Rambo to the front with his knife & bow.

6) Use handgunners as town security force to control looting, communications, traffic, crowd control etc. They're useless in real combat.

7) During the fighting, dig additional defenses in front of the bridge for a "worst case" last ditch effort.

8) Sit back and let the advance Air Cav blow them up.

9) Your biggest problem will be in controlling the Americans. Use a heavy hand to make sure everyone follows orders and stays at his/her post.

Your scoped riflemen would probably kill between 15-30% of the enemy before they routed. Against a determined enemy trained for close assault, your first line would probably kill even more of them, but that's why you should defend in depth. Your first wo lines on the hills should win your "battle".

They'll never reach the bridge in time before Army regulars arrived.

[Herr Walther]

I'm with Jeff on this one. Drop a span of that bridge and get the AR, AK, and lever-action guys on that bank under some cover and have a turkey shoot.

Send some of the AR, AK, FAL, and scoped guys on both sides of the road and get them into a crossfire either coming at you or from behind as they march ahead of their positions.

I'd get the boats out of there. All they are are targets. Unless you have a gunboat nestled in there somewhere.


I don't know a company from a regiment.
I was never in the Army. I was Air Force and was trying to figure out a way to use those AC in other than a recce platform. Especially the two 'dusters. Poison chemicals maybe? Probably get they're asses shot off with the RPG's trying to get in that close. After they've expended them, who knows. I do know that a light AC won't take much rifle fire before coming down. Fast and low maybe with the 'dusters.
A 400HP Aircat will really move. Hose 'em down with teargas, OC or anything lethal while the guys on the road sides, are crossfiring them. Read...Ambush.

You might be able to drop a handful of the scoped bolt-action guys behind their formation. Start picking off the seniors one at a time.

Get those 500 men armed! Gun stores in the area have ammo, get them some guns to go with it!

I would station some of the men with shotguns and handguns in strategic spots thoughout the city such as power and water facilities as well as communication centers. Wouldn't hurt to have some AR, AK, FAL, guys there too.

How'd I do?

Some of you Army field officers want to help out here?

[Ironbarr]

not being an arm-chair general...

Lots of "tactics" here, but here's a couple thoughts to plug into any "plan":

1. Ammo - you have miscellaneous calibers - they have AKs - one ammo.
2. Is the river fordable without the bridge? If so blowing the bridge is not battle effective.
a. it is a faster path for your saviours to enter;
b. it presents a narrow (and reasonably controllable) passage to your enemy. Controlled and manipulated (tactics), you can off a bunch of BGs and with heavy small arms fire and drive the remainder back to regroup (and rethink), then you can recover many more AKs/ammo needed to arm your "veterans" et al. Face it - store owners won't keep up with the firing rate and you'll have nothing but unusable cartidges left (to throw at the BGs, huh?).

Take a leaf from "The Patriot" - use the trees and other cover to trim the march down to reasonable numbers - after all, they are strangers - your folks know the terrain. Don't charge the field - they are (I suppose) trained soldiers. They are also limited to what they carry. Make it hard to get potable water. Consider burning the crops if any but only after the fields no longer provide you cover.

There's probably more, but I'm weary now.

Have fun. Let me know who wins ok?

-Andy

[C.R.Sam]

Good posts here and a lot of good in CWL's post.

Amongst the hunters, I would want to know which are successful bow hunters and riflemen. They would be better at shot selection.

I would want to know the skills and capabilities of the 500 vets. That is not a very big vet pool and with bad luck you won't have riflemen, sappers, EOD etc. With good luck, some of them will be the real deal and the rest will be obedient workers.

If the intel re the opposing force's strength and strengths is correct, this should not be a very costly defence. Especialy if the good guys have a hundred or more very good people.

Sounds like a modern Thermopolye set up only with better odds for the good guys.

If the duster drivers are willing to go up against the RPGs, any dust will do a lot to scare the whey out of the bad guys. Malthion being relatively harmless will make em think they have been poisened.

Establishment of communications with the regular forces coming to help will be nearly manditory to avoid taking heat from their advance units. Friendly fire isn't.

Molon Freekin Labe bad guys.

Sam

[Jeff White]

You have this wide fast river between you and the footborne unit that's attacking, so why fight?

If the Army is coming to the rescue in 24 hours all you really need to do is delay the Moronian's advance. You can do this by committing almost no forces of your own. The US Army division that is coming to your rescue will engage and most likely destroy or disperse the Moronians with long range fires before any ground maneuver units arrive. Tac air, attack helos, MLRS and 155mm artillery will have them under fire early. If the division is only 24 hours out, there is most likely an LRSU detachment already in the area with eyes on the enemy. All you need to do is bottle them up at the bridge and wait. The engineer battalion organic to the divison base will have enough bridge to completely cross the river if necessary, replacing one span of the existing bridge won't slow the counter attack down by much.

Jeff

[Erick Gelhaus]

Ah yes.... Krasnovia & Pinelandia are at it again.

[David Scott]

Well, here's my thoughts.

First, you need to get those planes in the air, flying in relays to monitor the enemy's progress from beyond small arms range. Just because they were on the highway doesn't mean they'll stay on it. Keep tabs on them, and establish communications with the Army forces coming in so they'll be up to date.

Second, arm those 500 vets. Ask all the folks who brought guns to the party if they have spares they can loan to a fellow defender. Also tap the local gun stores, as was pointed out. You want battle rifles first, then lever actions, then shotguns.

Get whatever load-bearing equipment you can. Every man should have a backpack with ammo, food and water. Also find some flares and floodlights with generators in case of night action.

When you start dividing up your troops into units, give them catchy unit names. It's a morale thing, like Patrick Swayze yelling "Wolverines!" For leaders, pass over the barstool commandos and choose the calm and competent types.

Get your folks with the boats to remove all boats from the far side of the river, working outward from the bridge. Don't give the enemy any means to cross. Also evacuate any civilians on that side. Tell them to bring their guns.

Get that bridge wired with enough TNT to blow the center span, but hold off on detonating.

The folks with handguns won't be very effective at the ranges we'll be fighting, so they get to organize the evacuation of the town, and patrol for looters. Split them into 3 man patrols with assigned territories and give them radios.

The battle plan is to use multiple lines of resistence, but not to fight a pitched battle except at the last resort. The first line is at the far side of the bridge. Get your scoped rifles on high ground; their targets are officers and NCOs plus anyone carrying a radio or RPG. Reinforce them with your auto-rifle guys. They will set up on both sides, aiming down the road with overlapping fields of fire. Use cover and concealment. When the invaders approach, wait till they're well within range of your weapons -- about 200 yards, maybe. Then your guys have 60 seconds to dump as much fire as they can into the bad guys, then dash for the river, where your boats will take them across.

Once across the river, they will be dug in along the bank (entrenchments provided by that construction guy) and interdict a crossing. If the bad guys try to cross the bridge, then you blow it, with them on it.

Behind the guys at the riverbank, there are more trenches, with at least 100 yards of clear fields of fire. Bulldoze trees if you have to. Your lever-action and shotgun troops are already there. If the enemy does get across the river, this is your fallback position for the guys at the river. If you have time and materials, you can put obstacles out in the, like concertina wire or just twisted chain-link fence.

Behind this set of trench lines you will have pickup trucks loaded with ammo supplies and more water (water is important). Put another set of trenches every 200 yards back to the edge of town. At the bottom of every line of trenches, bury sticks of dynamite with 55 gallon drums of gasoline on top of them. If you have to fall back, you'll blow these when the enemy reaches the trenches you just left.

If you have to fall back into the town, have prepared high positions for the snipers, with stockpiles of ammo and a couple spotters each. Spotters will have small arms to protect the sniper, and binoculars. Block streets with cars and trucks. Your tactics here will be to use your local knowledge for run-and-gun -- you pop up, hit 'em quick, and vanish to pop up again elsewhere.

Prepare a facility for prisoners and one for medical treatment. Have fire and rescue teams standing by.

Then get out there and kick some Moronian butt.

[44rugerfan]

Get the heavy machinery to work and build up some defensive postions about 300 yards from the river. Wire the bridge to blow. Get the boats to your side. Send a couple of planes with instructions to fly high and just observe troops movements. Send about 50 people with high-powered rifles with instructions to snipe and harass, but not engage directly. Build the defensive perimeter so that 1) it is hard to see from the bridge and 2) shaped in a U around the end of the bridge. If there is any dynamite left, set a few charges on the other side of the bridge, one stick of TNT in a 5-gallon bucket filled with nails camoed it some bushes. Let about 500 of the enemy across, or until they have their RPG's on the bridge, and blow it. Have a Turkey shoot with those that got across, blow the charges across the river, and wait for the cavalry.

[4V50 Gary]

because if they were marching against my socialist government, I may just join them.

Realistically, with an untrained militia, you can't engage them in a set piece battle. They have better training, leadership (more NCOs, jr. infantry officers), and weaponry (GPMG, mortars). Suggest harrassing to slow movement and interdiction of supplies (typical guerilla warfare). Perhaps even let them enter into part of the city and isolate them for the regulars to destroy. It worked at Stalingrad and in Buenos Aires (failed British Expedition during Napoleonic era).

[Spectre]

Oh! An easy one!

Burn the city. That'll throw 'em!

If you feel like it, lace the bridge with all 4500 sticks of dy-no-mite. Wait for the invaders to begin marching across...

Personally, I would be more concerned with HOW the invaders landed, and where their transport is now. :D

;)

[IZZY]

Gary,

I disagree, this is a winnable scinerio. A lot of folk said what I would have, and a lot depends on the exact conditions at the time. ( Remember in 1812 the Brits first tried to land in Virginia and the militia drove em off, the Marylanders were less succesful and D.C. was burned).

Things I disagree with:

1. Using vetrens as work detail. Using these guys as one armed unit with a command structure is essential, hopefully some have "seen the elephant" and will stand fast, or else retreat and REGROUP/ Resist. For the older, less combat experianced ones at least give them a few spare sticks of dynamite with cricket lighters ( not Zippos) and pistols/levers cleaned out from the stores- they are your police/urban "Volksstrum" defenders.

2. Do NOT put snipers on the roofs. This is the first place the enemy will look. instaed have holes put into slanted roofs, third story or up floors, dont have barrel poking out.

3. To blow or not to blow? (the bridge) Depends on many factors: can your side repair it for the counter attack? Is the river fordable?(crossable) etc. Still you could always have one section rigged for command detonation if need be ( overwhelmed only by way of bridge) and the tactics fit. Don't expect a blown bridge to keep out foot troops for very long. Ethier theyll grab a log and paddle accross one by one or build rafts...ethier way expect to be
flanked in short order.

4. What ever you do, do not seperate a hunter with a familiar rifle/scope combonation in favor of any one else. The hunter should know his rifle better than any one else, and on a whole be more effective with it.

Most of the advice was pretty good, rigged trenches etc. There you have it a battle plan TFL style!;)

[Quartus]

2,500 troops would file the plane full of .223s

Ah! Someone who's never fired at airplanes before! :D

With full auto fire and all 2500, you will almost certainly down some of them.

Some of them. The rest will fry you.

BTW, you don't have military supply lines to support you. You can't afford to spray full auto. You may get NO planes downed.


this is a winnable scinerio

Maybe so, but that's not a good use of your resources in this situation. All you need to do is delay. Do that. Be prepared to last ditch defend, which includes mining (but not blowing) the birdge. But the main battle plan should be delay.

[IZZY]

Caprian Hoek,

I agree delay is plan #1. But if you rout them, and you have the means a clean up operation to gather up all loose equipment left on the dead, finnish off or interigate the wounded ( assuming you can speak the language, or the medical facilities to keep them alive to be interogated by the home army-if it ever gets there). Make sure your troops expect no quarter and give none.


WASTe of recources? :confused: Heck this is the best use of the civilian home gaurd types...to absorb the brunt of the enemy advance, make them bleed, slow them down and possibly stop them.( very likely in this scinerio) Then the professionals can mop up.


In other words flexability and simplicty should win the day.

Remember the enemy Has no airplanes...you do.


Most of all you need a caring yet ruthles, cold, respected, calculating commander :D

[CWL]

To re-iterate:

Do not blow up bridge!
Do not defend the town!

Kill them before they reach these tactical/strategic objectives! This is one small battle in a full blown war. Save your resources.

You only have to hold the enemy back for 12 hours. Do not waste time.

You will only start a "civil war" if you try to disarm the gunowners, especially at this point. Save time, save lives and save the hostility for the invaders. Protect the 500 "vets" since they'll be usefull when the army "re-drafts" them. Realistically, the vets are more valuable than the townsfolk are. They will be the nucleus for a full battalion when the army re-equipts them. Don't antogonize the townspeople by trying to take away their guns-they're all going to be paying for their liberty in the trenches soon enough.

Take advantage of your scoped-rifles. Kill from afar. Use the talents of the hunters. Lets do some math. 300 scoped-riflemen shooting from prepared positions into massed enemy at 1000-500 yard range. OR-say we wait until 300 yards even. Assume 2 "hits" per man. Result 600 casualties to a force of 2500 combatants. This is ~25% casualties people! That's enough to make any force break and rout. If they don't run, they'll be pinned-down. Keep them there, pick them off and wait for the Army to arrive.

This is classical military doctrine for the past 200 years. If you defend in depth, you'll never let them penetrate too far into your lines.

Also, always give an enemy an "out", if they think that they can run away and save themselves, they will. But if you offer them no choices, they might start suicidal overrun attacks, and then you'll suffer casualties of your own. Let the army win the war.

If you let them into the town, you're totally screwed. Aside from destroying the place you are trying to protect. They outclass you in terms of weaponry and training here. Assault rifles are the kings here. Be prepared for 50% casualties or more on both sides, do you really want to die? Worse than that, you've let them into your town, now, they can hunker-down and defend a hardened site against the USArmy regulars. It may take days or weeks to dig them all out now. Congratulations, you've just given the enemy a stronghold/beachhead on the other side of the river, delayed a US counterattack, and killed a lot of GIs.

This ain't no movie.

[Nevada Fitch]

I am not going to get into this too deep but I will make a few suggestions. I would devide the scoped rifle shooters, leveraction people and the auto rifle people by age and fisical condition. I would also devide the vets the same way. I would arm as many vets from the gun stores, private donations etc as possible. Then after using the planes to determine location and course of the enemy I would send out 20 to 30 man wolf packs of the most physically able people I had and set up under cover at numerous locations out of town with orders to shoot and fall back to the river. some wolf packs would be sent out father than others. The remaining people that could not move or march as far would set up resistance on the town side of the river. The shotgun people would be held in reserve in case the lines got broken and the enemy made it to the town. The wolf packs would not plan on crossing the river when they fell back they would flank the enemy on both sides of the road. Boats could be positions up river and down river a ways away to retreve the wolf packs later if all lines get broken and the town got invaded. Dinamite charges could be set up in the ditches of the road on the other side of bridge opposite the town, if it was possible to detinate them remotely by either the wolf packs or the resistance on town side of river. The enemy would probably take cover in the ditches there if they even made it that far, at which time the charges could be detinated. If the hunter wolf pack groups can make good use of cover and camo and can make one shot kills out to 200yds anyway, I don't believe the enemy would ever make it into town in 24 hours time. Don't open fire at 500yds on out as very few people would make hits at that range. You would give away your position and waste precious ammo. If you were lucky you might put together one wolf pack that could make hits at 300 to 400yds if you were selective and knew your people well enough to evaluate them. Then send this wolf pack out to engage the enemy first. There are lots of things that did not get adressed here but I am not going to spend anymore time on this.

[Quartus]

IZZY, I'm with you. I was trying to say that committing to a full victory before the regulars even get there is a waste. It's just not necessary. Now, if your delay and harrass tactics go extremely well and you can clean up, by all means you shoiuld be ready to do so. But that's not plan 1. I'm with CWL on this.


IZZY? Hmmm. I used to know a dear, scatterbrained, but spunky old lady who went by that name. THat's not you, is it? :D

[Arizona Fusilier]

The bridge could be essential to somebody's counterattack plan; I would use every means at my disposal to establish liaison with the good guys and essentially get permission to do that. If given the green light, I'd blow it ASAP, getting fancy with synchronizing this with a more cohesive battle plan with so many amateurs in the ranks is just too risky.

You'll only get away with broad mission-type orders in this scenario. It is hard enough to redirect forces with real military commo; plan on yours failing utterly. Task-organize the best you can, send your teams out to do the best they can, and hope no one gets caught in a MLRS barrage as the good guys fight their "deep battle". Disrupting th enemy's momentum by forcing him to prematurely deploy should buy the necessary time. As long as a significant portion of the town is under friendly control, you will have spared the good guys from the incredible time and cost of reestablishing a foothold, and thus greatly facilitated their advance/counterattack.

[David Scott]

WIth the multiple lines of resistance I described, I really expect that the enemy would never get across the bridge, and that after being ambushed on the far side they might just be smart enough to not try crossing it. The extra preparations for fallback provide for the worst case scenario, and they make sure all of your volunteers have something to do. It's better than just having them sit around and work themselves into a defeatist mood speculating.

The point of the exercise is to delay the Moronians without getting a bunch of civilian volunteers slaughtered. Since the Moronians are afoot, they have quite some time to march just to reach the bridge. All well and good; they'll be dog-tired when they get there. You probably could commit forces on the far side of the bridge and inflict huge casualties, maybe even win total victory, but you'll suffer greater losses yourself. If you hang them up at the bridge for a while, that mixed division will surely cream them on arrival.

If the Moronians find they can't cross the river and back off, then they will have a ways to go in that farmland before they get to anything else that looks like an objective (remember, they marched 12 hours through countryside). The Air Cav units will catch 'em. A few passes from helicopter gunships will do the trick.

Oh, one point I forgot about fortifying the town for the worst-case street fighting. You should position people in upstairs windows and on rooftops, with stacks of Molotov cocktails. A good tip is that if you mix the gasoline with Styrofoam till it's thick as jam, it will stick to whatever it hits. It's the poor man's Napalm.

Behind the idea of this thread is my desire to point out that every one of us who owns a firearm is a potential defender of our country and its freedoms. We are the "well-regulated militia", not the government-run National Guard, because part of the militia's job is to defend the poeple from their own government if it becomes too oppressive. Change the Moronians into the Federal Department Of Confiscating Guns, Burning Books, and Violating Rights, and where are you? On the barricades.

[IZZY]

Yah except the Gov. has air support, Nuclear wepons ( tactical and Nuetron), will always have a large segment of the population supporting them, know your terrian almost as well as you ( satalites) and many other goodies you probly haven't heard of like RF transmitters to make you sick, "Agent green" (LSD) and other chemical goodies to make you crazy/sick/dead, C-4's that shoot lasers from the nose to blind you ( Really! I kid you not). Biiological warfare etc....


You and all your "freedom fighters" would be dead ducks.

[Correia]

As El Supremo Grand Jefe Warlord I would send out all of the Million Moms, HCIers, Liberals, Democrats, Gorons, and David Boies with rolled up newspapers and garden rakes to hold them off as long as possible to buy the rest of us time.

[Dr.Rob]

Corriea I'd do you one better. I'd send them over with garden rakes and newspapers and THEN I'd blow the bridge.

Only question is.. while they are still on it or after they cross? :P

Hey no one mentioned getting your hospitals alerted for triage and calling up the FD and ambulance services. You are gonna need them.

And for god's sake someone call the media to get this all on tape.

First question asked at meeting "Anyone know how to blow up a bridge?"

[4thHorseman]

BigG, you're a hard man, but I have to agree with you on this one.:)

[Edmund Rowe]

2500 doesn't sound like a battallion, that sounds like a Brigade. First thing I'd ask is how the intel was collected. For all I know that Brigade is the lead element of a whole division (8000-12000 for typical commie infantry TO&E). If the info was from some amateur, the enemy formation may be way bigger or smaller than what was reported. So it might be just a recon in force or something, but we can't count on that. Expect everyone will assume it's an all-out invasion.

More on enemy infantry formations: A unit that large WILL have support weapons. From RPK squad automatics to PK and DShK belt fed machine guns. Also 81mm mortars at the very least. Maybe 120mm mortars and towed artillery. Also, I would expect at least some of the unit to be motorized. Therefore, expect enemy recon elements on motorcycles or wheeled BRDM type vehicles. They may also have a forward detachment in some APCs to dash ahead and sieze key terrain features, in this case the bridge. Even if the unit started as completely foot-born, they might have confiscated a bunch of vehicles from civilians.

Additionally: If the unit's original beachhead had enough support, they might have fighter-bomber or helo gunships on call. What's travelling with the column may not be all they have available. They might not have much, but it only takes 1 or 2 passes from some gunships to ruin your whole day. They may be dropping cluster bombs, or even poison gas. Fun, huh?

Another problem might be refugees. Now how do we tell the difference between a stream of refugees and the enemy column in confiscated cars/trucks???

Now for friendly units:

First thing I'd to is announce everyone with firearms training or
competition experience to head to table A and tell me what you've had.
Next I'd send groups to collect guns and ammunition from gun stores. A problem I'd see is I haven't seen stores that carry enough to supply 800+ people with enough rifle ammo to sustain a long fight.

Why a long fight? I know the US Army said they will be here in 24 hours. However, feces happen in war. General Sad Sack may decide to send the division elsewhere, or the reinforcements are only a mechanized company (about 200 men) instead of a whole division (upwards of 20,000 in a US heavy division). "Relief in 24 hours" may stretch into 36, or 48, or 72, or never. The thing that sounds fishy is sending one US heavy division to tackle an enemy brigade. Either it's a lot more than a brigade that's coming my way or a lot less than a US division as reinforcements.

OK, unit breakdown:
Assemble groups of fit and aggressive groups of 20 in 4WD vehicles to dash ahead and harass the enemy and keep us informed of their advance. Get some HAM radio operators in each group. Get a good military vet or 2 in charge of each group.

Assemble groups of 50 of the lesser fit/lesser trained as more static defense types for holding the town and bridge.

Get a small group to count how many headed over the river and if/when all are back on the friendly side.

Find out if there are any belt-fed heavy weapons in private ownership and get them in some dug-in gun pits covering the bridge approaches. Also, get some weapon pits dug with whatever tripod mounted whatsit inside them that looks like a weapon as a dummy firing position. More on this later.

Get a group of folks to wire the bridge for demolition ASAP. Get some of the groups of 50 to defend against enemy advance attack parties.

Get medical facilities ready for incoming casualties. Also an alternate location outside town. Warn the med people if the enemy arrives, they will probably shoot all the wounded and press-gang the medical people into treating the enemy wounded, so they'd better be ready to clear out fast.

Get the construction company started digging trenches and embankments to hold the bridge area. Also have them pile a roadblock on the far and near sides of the bridge in case the demolition fails.

Get some welding equipment to pre-cut some of the bridge spans to make the demolition easier. Target a demolition time of 4 hours from now.

Keep some mobile groups in 4WD vehicles as a reserve, and some others spread out to warn of enemy approach. ALL directions, not just the far side of the river.

Get some of the private pilots up keeping tabs on the enemy location and keep them in contact with the 4WD harassment groups. Tell them to watch out for SAM-7 and other shoulder launched surface to air missiles.

Send the boats out to either bring back or destroy every boat on the river within 30 miles.

Send some crop dusters to spray the enemy column with pesticide. Tell the pilots to make ONE pass each. I don't think this will really kill any of them. My intention is to make them suit up in gas masks which will really slow them down. A combination of the crop-duster pass and an ambush by one of the 4WD groups should create some good confusion. If they respond
aggressively, we know we are dealing with a first rate unit. If it is a first rate unit, I'm telling all units to pull back to the friendly side and blow the bridge.

Some aggressive units may be best left on the far side with the option of retreating via boat pickup. I'd leave this to the small group commanders' discretion. I'd love to think we have a bunch of great guerrillas in the tradition of Francis Marion but my experience is just finding a good shooter is at least a 1 out of 10 shot, so I might have at most 100 effective people. More likely 20-30.

Warn everyone if the worst comes to worst, the enemy will have assault boats, the bridge won't blow up, and we'll eat a heavy preparatory fire by helo gunships, fighter-bombers, and artillery (REAL arty, I mean like 122mm and 152mm howitzers) before the ground attack comes. Expect at least 50% casualties from the prep barrage. Get some code words pre-planned to retreat to specific rally points beyond the town in case we can't hold them.

That's a good start for Colonel Edmund's Irregulars. I would really expect most of the militia to flee after a hard barrage and ground assault, I hate to say. A clever assault might cause an irreversible panic. For all I know a heliborne assault is a few minutes away.

Edmund

[Edmund Rowe]

There isn't much this group can do against an air attack by fighter-bombers or gunships except make a bunch of fake fighting positions and hope they use up more of their payloads on them first.

Edmund

[Spectre]

Blow the bridge.

Burn the town.

Leave Edmund on the far side to delay advance of enemy.

Just kiddin'. :p So, Edmund, would I get to carry your AR while you used your Remington to harry the invaders, or would you choose one of your M1A's? :D

[Edmund Rowe]

Unfortunately, as "militia Colonel" my best place would not be out popping redcoats, but in a command center directing the action and analyzing incoming reports. Nuts, I'd have to figure out some not-so-obvious place to have my CP. Hope I guess right or an enemy barrage will be my wake up call. :eek:

...but in a situation like that, if I wasn't the CO, I'd love to get out there with my Remington and start the bodycount!! :D

Edmund

[Spectre]

Hmph. You're making it hard on me, buddy. Then, I'd have to choose between being your bodyguard, and being out taking heads! ;)

Every Your Most Obedient Servant...

(just bought The Patriot today, and watched half; gosh, I love that movie!)

[Ironbarr]

what all these "plans", suggestions, etc. (including mine) would look like if (re 2 Amend) folks were trained "in the arms of the times" OR/AND had the local area National Guard armory available to them.

What then would these "scenario" plans be?

(Now, with this insertion, this thread could reach record size/participation.)

[Jeff White]

Edmund,

I hate to disagree about where you should be during the battle, but I must. You and Spectre will get plenty of chances to shoot "Redcoats". You need to lead from the front. This will be especially important since you are dealing with untrained "militia" troops.

Your untrained and barely disciplined units will need stalwart examples such as Spectre and yourself to bolster their morale once the battle starts. They are going to see some very ugly things and even though they will be fighting for their homes, you need to remember that most of our population has never known real life threatening hardship. Good leadership will make up for many of the more sophisticated weapons your forces lack. If the troops think that their Colonel is in a bunker somewhere listening to contact reports on the FRS radios, they will be more likely to bolt when the going gets really tough. On the other hand, the sight of their Colonel on the front, sharing the danger and the hardship, and counting coup on the enemy, it will make it mentally harder for them to run. They say that General Patton never went back from the front in a jeep. He would ride to the front so the soldiers could see him going to the front, but he was always picked up in a light aircraft and flown to the rear so his soldiers never saw him "retreating".

You can study all the tactics, stategy and logistics you want, but when the time comes and the bullets are cracking overhead, and shrapnel from VT fused rounds is raining down, and no sane man would leave cover, you have to be able to stand up and yell FOLLOW ME!!!!!!!

Jeff

[labgrade]

Y'all're making this was too difficult.

Put up a couple "road closed" signs, back it up with another few "road guards," replete in blaze orange safety vests & those STOP/SLOW reversible signs - maybe a "form one lane" sign. Have a few folks just stand around with shovels to make it look realistic.

Worse case, some biddy from the local guvmint office can harry them with inane questions & ask 'em to fill out lots of forms - in triplicate. Besides, where's your invasion permit?

------

A series of 5-gallon gas cans filled with aforementioned styrofoam thickener, coupla sticks of 80% on one side & about an inch worth of assorted nuts/bolts on the other (lay the can on its side, squirt a coupla caulk tubes worth of silicone/liquid nails/whatever & pour on the nuts) - wrap the whole thing in duct tape. Electrical-primed & rig for detonation with radio controlled gear.
1/2 a$$, poor man's claymore. Set 'em in elongated concentric circles along advance route. Blow alernating 1/3 inner circle when troops are in range. After the initial effect & they pop back up again, blow the remaining inner 1/3 circle. Same same for those backing out or moving forward - your next series of 1/3s. Any moving to the woods outside the road area, crank off the next outer circle by 1/2s.

Doubtful dynamite will bring down any modern bridge. Prolly need shaped charge to cut steel beams. You don't have to blow it anyway - only kill anybody on it. Besides, a back hoe could tear out huge sections of roadway making it all but impassable - at least put 'em on foot .... Wouldn't "blow the bridge" until best effect & max troops on it, without letting any come across.

For "cocktails," duct tape railroad flare (fusee) to side of bottle. Built in striker/igniter & would suck if your Bic didn't flick.

In any event, if they want to run away - let 'em. That's for later.

Far as the crop dusters go, think I'd spray 'em w/gasoline & pitch out a few lit RR flares ....

[Ironbarr]

but if we're gonna put up road closed signs as a tactic, then maybe we better put up "No Shooting" signs on the trees and a big bill board on bridge approach stating something like:

"According to legislated state law the town council of XYZville is empowered, and accordingly has acted to, ban all non-resident owned firearms".

This is a gun free zone. Turn in all firearms to the Sheriff station located at the bridge-head.

Who knows? Might work.

[Edmund Rowe]

Jeff White, you are correct. The militia would need strong visible leadership from the front.

I'd prefer to say "Do what I do!" but you get the idea.
Spectre, we WILL get plenty of opportunities to pop redcoats.

Nuts, nobody commented on my take on the enemy?

Edmund

[Spectre]

I think we can see you know your ComBloc TOE. :D

I'll support while you engage at maximum effective range with a PSS.

If we can jury-rig command-detonated napalm devices, I would hit lead enemy elements. I'm okay with burning wholesale plots and fighting over the ashes. :mad: I would like to have and keep the iniative, especially since I concur that our fighting force is not likely to hold under sustained fire. With that in mind, I am not overly concerned with ammo supply.

Jeff, some of us are just too dumb to run. :D

[Jeff White]

Edmund,

You estimation of the enemy is pretty right on for an outfit organized and equipped under the old Soviet model. However, David only gave us so much information and it is his thread ;) Perhaps the Moronians (obviously backed by the CHICOMs) came into the country in containers on Cosco freighters.

It is a totally different scenario under your order of battle.

Jeff

[C.R.Sam]

If Col. Edmund is in charge of the operation.......he should NOT be in front. He needs to be in a position where he and his advisors are able to keep abreast of an ever changing situation, with multiple sub-operations and fronts. The communications alone would restrict his mobility. Yes, good leaders are needed in the hot areas but not THE leader. Mayhap there are NO VETS with grunt leadership capability. Another alternative might be firefighter team leaders who are also hunters. Plant foremen, logging operation foremen. Leaders can be found.

Sam

[Arizona Fusilier]

Other leaders WILL be found, they will self-identify themselves. That's why I think this crew should self-organize itself into groups of 20 - 40. Being with their friends, neighbors, hunting-buddies, and the like, in short, with people they know and trust, is about the only team-building your going to be able to pull off in this scenario. The odds are good that this will produce a fair mix of all the aforementioned weapons, so every team will have a modest ability to pull off any mission, also building their confidence.

"Joe, take your team by your favorite tree stand along the old logging road. If the enemy shows up, have every man take deliberate but quick shots, and empty one magazine at the enemy. When they empty their weapon, have them immediately run to the rally point by the old town dump. Then use your cell phone to call me and render a report and receive further instructions. If you can't raise me, your on your own to use your best judgement on what you should do next. But take the advice of 'old sarge' here; he'll keep you 'real' and make sure you don't bite off more than you can chew. After the war is over, meet me at The Ole Brass Rail Saloon; the first round's on me."

Respectfully, if you think you can pull off anything more sophisticated than what I just described with this scenario, I submit this thread has gotten your imagination running wild.

[Jeff White]

The "troops" you have to work with are not going to be any better quality and maybe even worse then the colonial militia during the American Revolution. Our population is composed of a lot of well meaning people who have never really faced any physical hardship in their lives. Outside of a few Special Operations types we've seen no real heavy Infantry combat since Vietnam. The last time we ever were in a position where we could lose on the battlefield on a large scale was Korea in the early '50s. Most Korean war vets are in their late 60s or older by now. The Vietnam generation is aging. Add in the incredible tooth to tail ratio of American forces and you'll be lucky to find 10% of your vets who served in ground combat arms (Infantry, Armor, Artillery, Engineers) . Most of the rest will have had exposure to military discipline, but will have almost none of the skills you need to fight with.

Among these you will have those who would try to prosper from the situation (it happens everywhere, it's just human nature), and many who will want to use the situation to further their own agenda. One thing you haven't taken into consideration is those fringe groups who will use the Moronian invasion to seize a little power for themselves. Colonel Edmund may very well have to fight Imperial Grand Dragon Donnie for control of the forces. Imperial Grand Dragon Donnie may have several followers who have stockpiles of military stores that may be usefull to the cause. Some of the sheeple will naturally side with Imperial grand Dragon Donnie because they will feel safer, because with his camo clad followers he may appear the more competent and prepared leader. Grand Dragon Donnie may even want to negotiate a seperate peace with the Moronians if he thinks it will benefit his cause. Others will be reluctant to leave their homes and families to the protection of others. Some will want to head out on their own to engage the enemy. About a third of the people will want to do nothing and stand by and watch as the Moronians march by.

You have less then 12 hours to build a fighting force out of this mix. Simple tactics where all your soldiers can see one another will be the order of the day. You will probably have some small hastily thrown together units that can scout and perform other functions, but you will still need to lead this group from the front. Sam, with all due respect, if you had six months to train, you might be able to pull off complicated operations that Colonel Edmund could direct from his TOC. In 12 hours, you will be lucky to organise much of a defense. The best you can hope for is to hold them long enough for the Army to get there. The only way is to use the natural obstacle you have, the river.

12 hours would barely be enough time for a trained brigade with a lot of engineer support to organize a defense in depth. Blow a span of the bridge, get your forces online on your side of the river and hold. You will have to commit a fairly large force to internal security in the town to keep order and prevent looting. You may have to disarm and lock Grand Dragon Donnie up or even kill him in order to stay in control.

Unfortunately this won't be the romantic story of people coming together to save their homeland. It's going to rip families apart, destroy lifelong friendships, and cause terrible loss of life if you decide to take the fight to the Moronians right away.

Lets look at the history here, in occupied Europe in WWII various resistance units not only fought the Germans, but they fought each other, when there were no Germans around to fight. What makes anyone think things would be any different here?

Jeff

[Kestryll]

I live in L.A., I would just tell the local gangbangers "hey those guys said some nasty stuff about your mama!":D

AK's and RPG's huh? Get several of the local deer hunters to snipe the RPGers and send a wedge of the construction bulldozers to run them flat!

If you don't want to get that close, raid the hardware store for wood and supplies and build a couple of large trebuchets fill some 55 gallon drums with gas, slap a stick of dynamite on the end, light it and fling them! BOOM!!
Airburst would be best.:o

[C.R.Sam]

Trebuchets n David slings have a lot in common. Pretty simple but if operator doesn't know how to operate with some skill, operator first casulty. Kool idea tho.

Sam

[Cal4D4]

Being a Moron...

[Cal4D4]

edited out