From: gary@ke4zv.uucp (Gary Coffman)
Subject: Re: Registering "Assault Keys"
Reply-To: gary@ke4zv.UUCP (Gary Coffman)
Organization: Gannett Technologies Group
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 11:49:44 GMT

In article <1dpes0INN95e@CATHY.NA.CS.YALE.EDU> yarvin@cs.yale.edu (Norman Yarvin) writes:
>andy@SAIL.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes:
>>In article <1dn0q0INN6qa@CATHY.NA.CS.YALE.EDU> yarvin@cs.yale.edu (Norman Yarvin) writes:
>>>I was not talking about the possibilities of producing a nationwide
>>>revolution of a military sort.  Such a thing is even more impossible than a
>>>local homeowner standing off the cops.
>>
>>Really?  Then why have such nationwide revolutions succeeded 65% of
>>the time since 1945?
>
>Because they were in third-world countries!  We were talking about the US,
>which is still extremely far from being a third-world country.

We're also talking about a country where the general population is better
armed than nearly any other civilian population on Earth. As the US military
found out to it's chagrin in Vietnam, jets, tanks, and battleships are of
little use against a guerrilla force that can melt back into the general
population by day and hit and run by night. 

>>>The Afghans would never have been able to counter the Soviets without
>>>importing their weapons from friendly surrounding nations.
>>
>>The majority of their weapons were self-manufactured or stolen.
>
>There is no possibility an Afghan tribesman is going to manufacture a gun.
>(A sword, yes.  But it will take him a long time.)  Now perhaps the Soviets
>were sufficiently inept that the Afghans could have lived on captured
>ammunition alone.  But they did not have to, for we supplied them quite a
>bit.

Sorry this is wrong. The Afgans have a long tradition of native firearms
manufacture. Before the war, they mostly made traditional muzzle loading
arms because fixed ammunition was scarce, but they quickly began to turn
out copies of the Soviet AK-47 and SKS in village workshops. Both of these
weapons are designed for simple mass production by relatively unskilled
craftsmen using only hand tools. The Viet Cong also made these simple, but
highly servicable weapons in workshops concealed in tunnels under villages
during their war. Since the gunmaking art has a long and honored history
in Afganistan, very skilled craftsmen were available and very high quality
weapons were produced that were in many cases an improvement over the
normal Soviet weapons after which they were patterned. The AK47 is considered
by most knowledgeable military people to be the best infantry weapon in
the world, and Afgan copies are considered among the best of the best.

>>>Stinger missiles
>>>may be man-portable, but they are sophisticated and expensive -- extremely
>>>difficult either to design or to manufacture.  The role that the Stingers
>>>played in the conflict was not exaggerated.
>>
>>Sure it was; and Yarvin does so.  If their use was so damn important,
>>why did the Afghans SELL them?
>
>It would appear we gave them more than they needed.  Actually, I shouldn't
>have said that the role the Stingers played was not exaggerated.  Undoubtedly
>somebody exaggerated it.  But they did play an important role.

The Stingers were the "last straw" that stopped the only weapon the
Soviets could use with impunity against the Afgans. Native methods
were effective in dealing with armored cars and tanks, but the Afgans
could only hide from the Hind helicopters. Jet aircraft weren't effective
because the Afgans could use the "box barrage" with their AK47 copies to
down the thin skinned jets. The heavily armored Hinds were a different
matter. Ordinary bullets just bounced off, and the traps and tricks that
defeated ground based armor wouldn't work on these aerial tanks. But no
military can win a war solely from the air. It takes troops on the ground
to take and hold territory. The Afgan rebels were so effective on the
ground that they effectively controlled two thirds of the country *before*
US made Stingers were made available to them.

>>>Without them, the Soviets could
>>>have used their armored helicopter gunships with impunity.
>>
>>Note that a govt can't use helicopter gunships with impunity on its
>>own territory and in its own cities, no matter what the rabble is
>>doing.  A govt requires some base of support, and can't destroy it to
>>win a revolution.
>
>If the government controls the press, it will not destroy its base of
>support by fighting the guerrillas within a city.  The press can simply
>blame the guerrillas for all the damage; few will know the real truth.  In
>Afghanistan, the government air-dropped antipersonnel mines disguised as
>toys.  Anywhere you do _that_, you can surely operate helicopter gunships
>without fear of further damaging popular opinion.
>
>And helicopter gunships need not be exceptionally devastating weapons.  If
>an Apache helicopter uses only its 20mm cannon (**), the damage would be no
>worse than if the same cannon were on the ground.  Thus it would not be a
>horrible crime to use these beasts in cities.  The operational advantage of
>a helicopter lies largely in its mobility.  It can get to the trouble point
>fast, can shoot at the enemy from any angle, and can run away fast.

The important concept to keep in mind here is that the Soviets were a
foreign army of occupation. Destroying whole villages was possible to
them. In a civil uprising, a government can't wholesale destroy it's
own people and their productive assets. If it does, not only does it
lose any popular support, it loses it's tax base and it's source of
troops. Thus most military weapons are useless in suppressing a popular
insurrection.

Gary
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