Examples of recent rebellions/civil wars where semi-auto rifles critical to the rebels' success?

theotherwaldo said:

It's difficult to cite wars and battles that DIDN'T happen because the opposition was well-armed.

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I think the “rifle behind every blade of grass” quote attributed to yamamoto (some debate about this, but I still believe he said it) is a good synopsis of what the IJA/IJN would have seen during a japanese invasion of the mainland US.

Sovblocgunfan said:

I think the “rifle behind every blade of grass” quote attributed to yamamoto (some debate about this, but I still believe he said it) is a good synopsis of what the IJA/IJN would have seen during a japanese invasion of the mainland US.

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But not today, especially if they invaded the Left Coast....

The flip side of the question is "would you really want to face off with govt troops WITHOUT semi-auto rifles?" Having semi autos does not mean you will be successful, but it levels the playing field a mite. The strongest deterrent is a well armed (of any sort of firearm) populace. If tens of millions of citizens/homes have firearms then any large scale oppression is going to be very costly. Even if those are bolt actions and revolvers. But if 1/3 of those are semi autos like the Garand, M1A, AR15, SR25, HK416, PTR91, FAL, SKS, AK47 style, etc then the level of difficulty to oppress goes up significantly.

Besides a semi auto you need aircraft suppression (as the Mujahideen realized), explosives, and crew served weapons at a minimum. But starting with semi-autos would give a population a head start to defend itself.

The strongest deterrent is a well armed (of any sort of firearm) populace

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who are also well organized with some form of a chain of command; otherwise you have small groups with poor intel, uncoordinated efforts against a military with every latest and greatest gizmo.

NWPilgrim said:

The flip side of the question is "would you really want to face off with govt troops WITHOUT semi-auto rifles?

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I would rather have artillery. And an Air Force. If I was close to water, a Navy would be helpful. The military has weapons that civilians don't have. A tyrant has to keep his military in line, in case they turn those weapons on him!

SSN Vet said:

Switzerland was at risk of being invaded by Germany during World War II but historians say because every Swiss man was armed and trained to shoot the Germans did not invade.

Though I'm very much in favor of an armed citizenry as a check against the tyrannical tendancies of government, the Swiss are not the poster child for this cause.

The reason the Germans didn't invade Switzerland, is because they didn't need to, as the Swiss had already rolled over and given them pretty much everything they asked for...
1. access to the Swiss banking system.
2. expulsion of Jewish refugees from Germany.
3. access to Swiss rail lines to Italy.
4. liberal dispensation of visas for use by German spies and business peeps.

Apart from having no reason to invade Switzerland, the real difficulty in doing so was and has always been the Alps. And the Germans knew that the Swiss had all of the bridges spanning mountain passes mined and ready for demolition.

A lot of Swiss peeps made big bucks during the war, especially the banks.

Don't forget, 1/3 of Swiss people are of German descent and speak a varient of the German language. There were many sympathetic to the German cause in Switzerland.

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Switzerland took in refugees of all catagories. They were interned and put to work - being a small country they could not support thousands of people simply lodging there for free. All the other things Switzerland provided for various nation's were the same. Including some materials and precision products.

The Germans didn't avoid invading Switzerland because of the Alps, that whole region including bordering Germany, France, Austria and Italy are equally mountainous.

Afghanistan. They've bogged down the two largest superpowers in the world. While arguments could be made that politics played a role in the success or failure of those wars, they managed to drag out conflicts long enough to have the USSR and the USA to all but abandon their goals and leave.

Given the climate of today and the mindset. You don't have to win a war anymore. You just have to make a "civilized" nation play by rules while you play by none and then drag out the conflict as long as possible. The world today doesn't have the stomach or guts to do what was done during the World Wars.

I guess that I would like to know exactly why your friend is asking. Does he have any presuppositions, and is looking for confirmation.

For example, what if it is his idea that rebels/insurgents cannot effectively confront regular troops using only semi-auto weapons, and not full auto? And what if he then contends that based upon that premise that it does no good for ordinary citizens to own them? If so, then ask him if they would have more success if limited to manual actions.

If semi-auto ARs, and similar small arms were not potentially effective in widespread population ownership the Marxists in gov would not be trying so hard to get rid of them. You can take that to the bank.

JohnBiltz said:

There are 5 million (best estimate, no one knows for sure) AR owners. If you don't think that would not scare a military force you are crazy. An army would win every engagement against them and bleed to death doing so.

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The US military in its current state still wouldn't go after civilians. I'd be more worried about the DHS which seems to be far better equipped to take on the civilian populace. They are organized and we aren't. I wish some state governments would take on this whole mess and act as a rallying point around which to organize. The Constitution was a contract ratified by the states, and they need to make certain that the Federal government obeys the terms.

Ireland used AR15's specifically (and famously AR 18's) to fight the British in what would be considered something halfway between a rebellion and a full civil war. the biggest, most expensive examples I can think of is the Vietnam war, the current Iraq/Afghanistan, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and so on. While automatic rifles were certainly involved, Vietnam had a lot of SKS's, and of course the Russians fought Afghans shooting bolt actions. I think the issue you will find is the easy way to write off the success of civilian forces as "enemies of freedom", from flag burning US haters, but no point in arguing with someone who has a strong, set, uninformed opinion, and has already dismissed any argument as the screaming of a caveman, no matter how logical. There are many examples of disarmament followed by genocide.

Afghans we're using vintage Enfield .303 bolt-actions to good effect.

RPZ said:

Afghans we're using vintage Enfield .303 bolt-actions to good effect.

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Fire once, but accurately, then get the hell out. It's been used against US troops as well.

George P said:

who are also well organized with some form of a chain of command; otherwise you have small groups with poor intel, uncoordinated efforts against a military with every latest and greatest gizmo.

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Don't forget that the families of these troops, and their officers, are not too far removed from additional armed citizens. Are troops attacking patriots in say Texas are going to be enthusiastic when their families might be under attack in Ohio?

bnolsen said:

The US military in its current state still wouldn't go after civilians. I'd be more worried about the DHS which seems to be far better equipped to take on the civilian populace. They are organized and we aren't. I wish some state governments would take on this whole mess and act as a rallying point around which to organize. The Constitution was a contract ratified by the states, and they need to make certain that the Federal government obeys the terms.

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DHS, FBI and all of the other 42 million Federal LE agencies......

GarySTL said:

Don't forget that the families of these troops, and their officers, are not too far removed from additional armed citizens. Are troops attacking patriots in say Texas are going to be enthusiastic when their families might be under attack in Ohio?

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Which also brings up the issue that it may not be just the authorities going after their remote families, but in a true rebellion, families of fighters on both sides become prime targets as well. You invade a foreign country and your fighters' families are safe back at home. You try to oppress your own countrymen and at some point after families suffer enough, then the families of the storm troopers become logical targets as well. Consider the Civil War on steroids of modern technology. Only insane people would want to bring that on unless they could disarm the populace first.

My Father defended Henderson Field in Guadalcanal in WW2 with a bolt action 03 Springfield. At the time I was using a M14 in Vietnam and we discussed rate of fire. He said it's amazing how fast you can work that bolt in a human wave attack. I still prefer a bottom feeder or a lever action.

Redacted said:

Switzerland was at risk of being invaded by Germany during World War II but historians say because every Swiss man was armed and trained to shoot the Germans did not invade.

.

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Perhaps you are referring to Hitler's Operation Tannenbaum, and SS Oberst Hermann Bohme's 1943 memorandum?

Good reading, from gun rights author / NRA affiliate Stephen Halbrook -

https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/nazis/readings/halbrook.html

...

I wasn't interested in "assault weapons" until I learned some details about the recent drug wars in Mexico. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War

In the beginning, the citizens, who were essentially disarmed by firearm laws (limited to non-military caliber, so essentially rimfire), illegally bought ARs and AKs and proceeded to go from town to town routing the well-armed cartel members, and took back a large portion of central Mexico. Later, the corrupt government essentially became the cartels, or vise versa, and the "revolution" ended when the government took control of the cartel wars from the citizens. There's a bunch of great documentaries on Netflix.

Before I learned about these events, I was ambivalent. I had a bunch of handguns, but never really saw the personal use for an assault weapon. Immediately after I finished watching Cartel Land, I put in an order for an AR. I'm glad I did, because now I've been building them for fun and learned to reload too, but something about the helplessness of those unarmed people - helpless against the government, helpless against the gangsters - until they armed themselves, made we want a rifle right away. Civilians armed with assault weapons could absolutely take on a government, or an oppressive NGO, by using the same guerilla warfare that people have used all through the 20th century to drive the revolutions in South and Central America, and overseas. The government is loathe to turn the full might of the military against its people - it is very rare, even in despotic nations.

The Japanese - Yamamoto story is BS and not found in any research scholarly source. The Japanese had NO plans of invading the USA. They realized the impossibility of it because of the logistic difficulties and intrinsic strength of the USA before the Pearl Harbor attack. The strength was not the riflemen, that was never mentioned.

Their planning was clear. They thought that the USA didn't have will to oppose their conquest of South East Asia which was their real goal. That was because we cut them off from resources due to their invasion of China. Because of successful surprise attacks on China and Russia earlier, and the success of those wars, they thought we would negotiate after a similar attack. Now, some Japanese didn't think so but were overwhelmed by the War Party. There was never any thought of invasion.

Thus, if you bring it up as an example for the RKBA, sorry to say you are not convincing and are counterproductive.

Similarly, with Switzerland. They like to just tell the militia story. As mentioned before, there were three reasons:

1. There were plans to resist and form a central redoubt in the country. However, it was to make taking them over difficult. No one doubted they could but to face a resistance like Yugoslavia wasn't worth it.
2. The Swiss cooperated more than they resisted. Products were supplied. Money hiddern and supplied. Some technical small trade occurred with the Allies through hidden products but German trade swamped that.
3. The Alpine tunnels linking Germany to Italy were freely open to Germans. They were heavily mined and that was the most important threat to prevent occupation.

So if you want to defend the RKBA, WWII is not your strongest suite and can make you look silly if someone knows history.

Gem, Admiral Yamamoto was killed during WW2 when U. S. Intelligence discovered he was to embark on an airplane at a known date, time and place. A flight of USAAF P-38s were ordered to intercept the plane and shoot it down, and that task was accomplished successfully. He therefor COULDN'T have said anything.
The statement has never been vetted and is bogus, even if attributed to some other Japanese official.

GEM said:

So if you want to defend the RKBA, WWII is not your strongest suite and can make you look silly if someone knows history.

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The Resistance against the German occupiers was armed by (a) native army stocks that were diverted to the guerrillas by sympathetic army officers, (b) airdrops from the Allies, and (c) captures from the Germans themselves. Almost nowhere was prewar civilian ownership of weapons a factor.

A pretty good analysis of guerilla warfare in the 20th Century is
The War Of The Flea: A Study of Guerrilla Warfare Theory and Practice
by Robert Taber


Usage http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/
Topics War of the Flea, guerrilla, guerrilla war, warfare, war, rebellion, revolution, overthrow, right, fighter, rebel,
Collection opensource
Language English

At one point it is claimed that Fidel Castro was down to 12 "Freedom Fighters" (not a fan, just quoting)

Another good book which expounds on this theme is
Total Resistance: Swiss Army Guide to Guerrilla Warfare and Underground Operations
by Major H. von Dach Bern

The fundamental attitude described in this book is one of preparedness, toughness, and sometimes, being a little mean to the enemy.