Shipbucket

Hello people!

Usually I try to keep out of this kind of discussion, but there is a point that has been overlooked so far: Being accustomed to the use of firearms since early age doesn't matter a thing when mounting a resistance movement against an occupation force. Any bum can be instructed to use a gun within short notice - just look at African child soldiers. What makes someone a good resistance fighter is the willingness to eschew the accustomed creature comforts and live in the wild for a prolonged period of time. I really don't want to insult anyone, but I think that is not the long suit of most Americans (particularly not that guy on Colo's picture), just like any inhabitant of a highly developed country. This would not have been much different in the 1940s, when America's living standard was already so high that most people would think twice before turning their back on daily showers, refrigerated food and the like. Even in area-bombed Germany in 1945, there was no resistance against the occupation forces at all, although there were still millions of fanatical Nazis around - but these were quite happy to stay at home and sleep in a bed every night rather than camping in the forest for months and possibly years. The Afghans are good resistance-fighters, not becuse they run around toting guns since childhood, but because most of them do not know what a WC is and have never seen a bathtub, much less spent any time inside of one, and thus are suitable for the primitive life of a resistance-fighter that would horrify anyone more civilized. The inhabitants of America's urban and industrialized areas most interesting to an invader were no frontiermen anymore since a hundred years; they may own millions of rifles, but I don't think many of them were willing to sacrifice the comforts they lived in. I sure as hell would not have, even if I had a cupboard full of assault rifles and a million of rounds for them in my basement. In German-occupied Europe, resistance was most effective in the least developed areas (Yugoslavia, Greece and of course Russia) and only a minor nuisance in highly-developed countries like Czechoslovakia, Belgium, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands.

So, the Americans should be content with the irrefutable fact that they were completely invincible in a symmetrical war and invading the US was about as feasible for the Axis as invading the Moon. In an asymmetrical war, they would have fared poorly, just like any highly-developed society.

Greetings - and no insult intended
GD

I should point out that 16 million Americans were willing to give up those creature comforts. When people attack America, it angers Americans. We want some "get-back." It's the whole "'Merica--Fuck Yeah" Mentallity. We'll spend years shouting at each other at the top of our lungs about everything from ice cream flavors, to sports teams, to political questions, but when we are attacked we become one ferocious, mean fighting machine. Just look at the Police response to the Boston Marathon bombings. Hundreds of law enforcement officers from all over the state of Massachusetts and Federal Agents descended upon the area, and pursued the Tsarneav brothers tirelessly (Litterally-Many of those officers were on their trail for 20 or 30 hours, in addition to the overtime worked the rest of the week after the bombings.) After 9/11, Recruiting stations were flooded with Americans who wanted to sign up. Granted, too our reactions aren't always great--harassment of muslims after 9/11 and the internment of the Japanese after Pearl Harbor. The one thing to always remember, when writing a scenario concerning America, is that America WILL rise to meet any challenge. Doesn't matter if it's an act of war, act of terrorism, or acts of god, when the excrement meets the oscillation, the American People will always come together in times of crisis.

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World's Best Okayest Author and Artist

OK, Michael Bay...
A high percentage of Americans in the 1940s were rural farmers and ranchers who were used to this and had just lived through the Great Depression.
Was it really because they wanted to "stay in bed", or was it because at this point they all knew the war was a foregone conclusion and fighting an occupation was pointless? I tend to think it was the latter.
Again, partisans aren't drawn from the urban centers. Partisans are drawn from the rural people who know the land and can stand the lack of creature comfort. I also don't agree with your point about how Americans of the time would not be willing to sacrifice the comforts they lived in... many millions did when they joined the armed forces to go and fight in Europe and the Pacific.

Kind of amazing to me that you guys instantly dismiss the idea and downplay the effectiveness of armed resistance by civilians to an invading power. Maybe I am just a dumb redneck American.

Here I go again getting involved in this STUPID thread...

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Hey, isn't the armed resistance by civilians what's giving EVERYONE's Militaries fits in Afghanistan?

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World's Best Okayest Author and Artist

My dear dumb redneck American ... we in Europe learn that hard lesson many, many times. Civilian resistance will always lose, always. Let's just say that war end after Third Reich conquer France. US don't go to war in Europe, Great Britain are happy with peace and screw the frogeaters and the rest. Now nobody will help all those small or larger resistance cells, there is no hope, no relief.

Now serious question, there is no outside enemy for Reich, just it's own backyard. How log it will take them to eliminate whole organized resistance. You are intelligent man Colo, think, how log ?

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Nobody expects the Imperial Inquisition!

So you're basically saying what everyone already knows to be true - that a civilian resistance movement will not be successful without outside support.

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USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)

Which means that if America was invaded then the resistance would lose as they would receive NO outside help.

Unlikely.

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USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)

Wait... what ?

Oh you are trolling now, don't you.

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Nobody expects the Imperial Inquisition!

No, I am not trolling - it seems I am dealing with people who, for some unknown reason, seem incredibly determined to prove me wrong in an argument I don't really care about. Presumably because I am American and you seem to want to take me down a peg??? Which is pretty dumb and unfair considering that I am the farthest away from a "MURRIKA" mindset myself...

A long-established tenet of guerrilla warfare is that it cannot survive for long without some sort of outside support. Reference the movements in southern Africa and the American Revolution. I am not sure what Rhade was trying to accomplish with his most recent post - it was a fact that is already common knowledge.
This is sheer nonsense as there are plenty of countries that would provide assistance were the US somehow invaded and occupied. Let's not even talk to the fact that an invader could never occupy the entire country - it's just too large. In this case, support would flow to the partisans from areas of the country not occupied by the invader.

I'm not sure why I am sitting here arguing with the likes of APDAF. I regret even posting in what is otherwise an incredibly dumb thread whose creator doesn't even seem to be reading it.

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USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)