feasibility of surprise invasion of major city?

[Cosmoline]

what, specifically, would prevent you from doing just that? what would kill them?

Lack of air and water. A cargo ship is not a transport. You have to be set up with sleeping quarters, food, water, air vents, and supplies for thousands of men. It was tough for the US and UK to manage it during WWII with the industries of both nations working overtime. The logistics are way outside the means of any terrorist group. Actually, they're outside the means of most nations. I don't think the difficulties of moving large bodies of armed men in secret are really sinking in here.

 

[itgoesboom]

Only country that could pull it off is China.

And even then there would be significant problems, as mentioned by others.

- How to keep the satelites from seeing the 10,000 chinese soldiers boarding the boats.

- How to keep the soldiers alive and in fighting shape during a 1-3+ month transit.

- How to supply the soldiers once they arrive. 10,000 soldiers go through quite a bit of food, water, ammo, fuel, clothes etc.

- How to avoid having the ships sunk once they are discovered. Remember, ships don't unload all at once. It might take a day or two to unload just one ship. By the time one ship has been unloaded, the rest of the ships from the invading country hanging out in the harbor will be sunk by air power.

- How to deal with 150+ Million armed Americans in addition to National Guard, Police, various Fed agencies etc.

- 10k soldiers is not that many, when you think about it. Even if they are front line, elite soldiers, America is a huge country, and would incredibly difficult to mount an invasion against.

- What would be accomplished? 10K soldiers? What effect would that have? They couldn't take over America, they couldn't take over any amount of land, they couldn't overthrow the .gov?

- If any country did send 10k troops our way, and that country really wanted war, and had an almost unlimited amount of troops and manufacturing, I would guess that that particular country would nuked in a new york minute.

I.G.B.

 

[rwc]

While I concur that it is a far-fetched scenario, I think that if we "suspend disbelief" and posit it as fact then the Tet Offensive analogy is probably the best. They would have a couple days to a week to do what they could - likely ambushing LEOs, government offices, etc.

The President declares a state of emergency, Congress suspends the remaining limits on "posse comitatus" domestic use of regular army, and the Governor declares martial law. Within 72 hours to a week the US Army, Natl. Guard and Reserve would start sweeping neighborhoods (Those not deployed elsewhere...). And then there is the civilian resistance. Neighbors would form de-facto militias to defend their families and their homes.

The great difference between the Tet analogy (or Falluja) is that every 6 year old kid and 60 year old grandma would be tipping off the US forces as to the invaders' locations. Assuming they are all Jihadists they would go down hard, but they would go down. I doubt you would have many hold outs beyond a week and those that flee would have a hard time "melting away."

 

[Rebar]

I know of quite a few cities on either coast, that would welcome their new communist masters with open arms.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

The book has been written, I think the author was William L. Johnstone, but I can't remember the title and I can't lay my hand on it at the moment.

I won't go into specifics, but I think the possibility is real enough that I am concerned. Most of our even marginally combat-trained Reserve and NG units are already deployed. There's not much here to defend the "homeland" except those of us who care enough to consider the possibility.

 

[saddlebum]

one riot , one ranger

 

[Sinsaba]

I can think of at least one way that as little as 5000 attackers could hit us in a way that would make 9/11 pale in comparison.

I don't think I'll outline it here but something to remember. They would have to a) assemble the 5000 troops, b) assemble the equipment, c) get all of the above onto a cargo ship, d) not be searched. All without the US having ANY idea. I don't think that is likely.

A note about the troops: You would have to have the same fanatic mindset that the suicide bombers have because it would be a good bet that few if any of the 5000 would be going home. Can they find 5000 people at one time that would for all intents and purposes commit suicide? I have my doubts on that one too.

I sure hope I'm right

 

[El Tejon]

I do not worry about 10,000 Somalians. I worry about 10, well-organized, trained and dedicated.

 

[secamp32]

There are 40,000 + local, state and fed officers in NYC

not including local officers from surrounding jurisdictions. Besides, if they invaded NYC half of them would get mugged and the other half would immediately be hired as taxi drivers.

 

[Aguila Blanca]

The book has been written, I think the author was William L. Johnstone, but I can't remember the title and I can't lay my hand on it at the moment.

Almost had it right. The author is William W. Johnstone. It's one of his "Ashes" series of novels. I think the one in question was entitled something like "Destiny in the Ashes" or "Destiny from the Ashes" or something like that.

 

[Waitone]

Change the count from 10,000 to a dozen or so.
NYC goes to Gilbert, AZ
Ships morph to tractor-trailers
Don't attack a city, attack a shopping mall or school.
Now you got something.

Clancy spins out something similar in "Teeth of the Tiger".

 

[Sinsaba]

a dozen or so and a shopping mall is doable. But the impact is not nearly as great as holding 75000 hostage as one could do in the "take over the city" concept which as you will recall was the original thrust of this thread.

 

[earonthief]

The 10,000 on a ship is to difficult to pull off. Sleeper cells in suicide fashion would be more likely. Malls, schools,etc. for air access for their demands. Maybe a few bomers,snipers for "attention getters". Very possiable.

 

[Jamie B]

Unlike many here, I am not an intelligent student of history.

If I was going to attack a US city, I would not waste money on troops and entry. I would instead coordinate attacks against power generation facilities with explosives carried by some type of rocket or missle, the longer the effective range, the better.

I would entail the use of chemicals in the saturation of water supplies in large cities.

In both cases, a minimum of people would be entailed, although they would be highly trained.

Given the multi-state power blackout several years ago, the effect would cripple cities quickly. The elimination of fossil fuel facilities would effectively paralyze movement by motor vehicles, and eliminate the use of back-up generators to replace the lost electricity.

This is one reason that I live in the country.

Jamie

 

[Roadwild17]

given that we haven't been invaded in more than a hundred years

1916/17 Poncho Via - Raided US garrison in Texas
1943 (I think) Alutions Islands Alaska, Japanese diversion action for Midway
BG’s have been on American soil in the last 100 years



Anyway,, get about 25 well armed highly trained guys to run around a major college campus with like 20,000 kids. Now say this is going on in every state 1250 men. Some states don’t have large colleges so take there men and give then a chain and point them to a large electrical sub station, have them chuck the chain at the biggest box they see in the substation and it should be a nicer fireworks show than July 4th along with most of the country going out of power for a long time. Anyway know how long it would take to get the large equipment replaced allover the country?
As far as keeping ground, why try? They should just cause as many deaths as possible then get killed buy LEOs. No food or supplies needed other than arms and ammo.

 

[silverlance]

hm

you need 10,000 chinese ninjas with deadly assault weapons like shuriken and nunchuks - i know they're deadly weapons because here in CA they are banned.

i'm so glad that i live in the safest state in the whole USofA!

 

[rwc]

I would instead coordinate attacks against power generation facilities with explosives 
carried by some type of rocket or missle, the longer the effective range, the better.

Not likely to be very effective given the design of most generation facilities; whether coal, nuclear, natural gas, or hydro.

I would entail the use of chemicals in the saturation of water supplies in large cities.

Also unlikely to be effective. To get to LD50 (est. of 50% fatalities from chemical exposure) you would need a really large amount of whatever "nasty stuff" it is you have in mind. Take a look at the Merck Index. Multiply the lethal dosage by the volume of water you would have to contaminate (multiple reservoirs in the case of a large city). Then figure out how to obtain the nec. quantity of "nasty stuff," transport it, and deliver it. Very hard to do. That said, many cities are capping open municipal reservoirs where they can and further resricting access.

Given the multi-state power blackout several years ago, 
the effect would cripple cities quickly.

The blackout was a result of different utilities tripping parts of their grid to protect their own systems. Many lessons learned and reliability maintenance has been a higher priority nationwide ever since. To paraphrase, "Blackouts happen." Transmission constraints are a wider problem at the moment.

The elimination of fossil fuel facilities would effectively paralyze movement 
by motor vehicles, and eliminate the use of 
back-up generators to replace the lost electricity.

True, but similarly difficult. You would have to take out every domestic US, Canadian, and Mexican refinery simlutaneously to seriously constrict the supply to the degree you envision.

While I won't address how I think you could do what you describe, I can say that a large number of people have been spending a lot of time contingency planning, penetration testing, and "war gaming" these risks. Nothing is perfect and it could happen. I will say that in general you are much more likely to seriously damage a large energy generation system if you know how it works than simply firing a missle at it, or driving up a truck bomb.

One example that is public record is an electric plant in Eastern OR that had a damaged transformer. Turns out they bought the transformer from a company that had it made in Turkey. Custom made in Turkey, no replacements available. Guess how many years it took to get that replaced? :banghead:

Most any system has a failure point, but you need to know where to look. Much of the information necessary to make that sort of analysis is no longer public.

Now doesn't that make you feel safer?

 

[JohnBT]

the "take over the city" concept...

I know they'd have big problems here if they disrupted the crack and heroin dealers. Seriously. Now, if they somehow avoided the dozens of most dangerous locations - no, nevermind - the customers still couldn't get through the lines and business would dry up for the most part.

What does a drug dealer care about hostages when profits are down.

John

 

[CAS700850]

This is a fun topic to discuss over drinks with buddies. Anyone ever wonder if the bad guys read these boards to get ideas? If so, I hope they look at the number of members here, and realize we represent a fraction of the armed populice that will fight their evil causes, led by our heros Chuck Norris, Steven Segal, and the rest.

 

[White Horseradish]

You have to be set up with sleeping quarters, food, water, air vents, and supplies for thousands of men.

TOILETS! Don't forget toilets.

10000 men using buckets will definitely get noticed. We'd smell that ship miles from the coast...

 

[SKeefe]

I do think that a "mass invasion" of 10's of thousand enemy fighters is a bit of a stretch...

But during the period of the Washington snipers, it did cross my mind that a lot of casualties could be incurred from this if there were many "snipers" involved throughout the country.

 

[Shweboner]

The top ways to "terrorize" Americans is to mess with power and traffic.

Remember the snipers in Baltimore, while people were on edge for a while getting out to pump gas... do you remember when they were looking for the 'white van' and they had stopped traffic searching all vehicles. Traffic backed up for miles and miles.

Just think if you could not get to work, or to the store, or pick up your kids, etc. If terrorists find a effective way to take out sections of roads/bridges and bring a city to a stand-still that would have greater effects than killing people.


Power? HA!!! 99% of Americans would probably kill tehmselves without power for an extended period of time!!
Im not talking about mounting an assault on a power plant, but coordinated, planned attacks on sub-stations throughout the city would put the lights out for quite a while.

combine the two and you have a recipie for chaos, it would be ugly civil unrest would follow and yor whole city would be in SHTF mode for quite some time.

Honestly wouldnt take too many guys. Destroy sections of major roads and hiways through the city then take out the power. it could all be done in less than a day, if planned correctly...

Thats the kind of thing I fear. I seriously doubt that some raghead is going to suicide bomb me, or give me anthrax.

multiply this by X number of cities and you have achieved one hell of a goal.

 

[Waitone]

Kill the power and Joe and Martha Sixpack won't be able to watch TV and TV, kiddies, is the true instrument of chaos.

 

[voilsb]

I remembered thinking, back when the Beltway shootings were going on, that it'd only take a dozen or so decent marksmen, in literally random towns throughout the country, to bring the whole nation to a standstill. If they literally targeted people at random: rich, poor, black, white, male, female, young, old, at work, at home, etc, and if they were in all sorts of towns from Podunk, Nebraska, to NYC and LA, to Cleveland and Portland, Vacaville and Sacramento, Shreveport and Little Rocks, the whole country would stop in fear, never knowing what town or what person is next.

This would be magnified if they moved from town to town, in no particular order or timeframe.

 

[1911 guy]

Invasion vs. terrorism

I agree that the invasion scenario is unworkable for several reasons, but the fact remains that we are so vulnerable to terrorism that it isn't even funny. Cities would be the main targets, though, as there are far more "sheeple" in cities and less resistance would be met.
As for shipping containers and cargo ships, containers regularly sit on docks for weeks awaiting transport so a biological could be used to sicken workers who would spread it to family and friends. An ocean transit no longer takes months or even weeks. If a cargo transport were loaded light with people instead of steel, ore or other dense textiles it could make it from almost anywhere to American shores in 10 days or less.
As for the power outage a few years ago being a substation failure, Bah Humbug. Trees fall on lines all the time and cause local outages. Now we're told that A TREE fell on A LINE and blacked out almost 25 percent of our real estate and nearly 20 percent of our population? Forgive me for being cynical.