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0 points0823498723498725y ago0 comments

The brits[1] complained it was guerilla warfare, but by the end, Washington had naval support (merci, france), cavalry (dziękuję, poland; köszönöm, hungary), and artillery (merci encore, france), not to mention tacit logistical support from a number of other countries[2].

General Washington explicitly stood on the principles of being a regular, so much so that he would send back british letters unopened if they had not been properly addressed according to military custom.

(that custom has been codified somewhat with the Geneva Conventions, but it remains to be seen how applicable these conventions are in the twenty-first century.)

[1] hostilities having started when the brits, acting on undeniably accurate intelligence, sent out parties to destroy rural terrorist arms caches somewhere out in the boonies of Middlesex county. After accomplishing their mission despite sporadic hostile opposition, they were subject to sustained small arms fire from unlawful combatants on the return trip.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Lexington_and_Conco...

[2] Catherine, for instance, not only engaged in sanctions busting, but (at least according to russian sources) reneged on providing troops for the british which her diplomats had initially considered, leaving the public/private military contracting to various HRE relatives of George's. No fan of democracy, she, but "enemy of my enemy" reliably trumps ideologies in geopolitics. (for contrast, the CSA would discover mere economics "but muh property rights! and cheap cotton!" didn't trump a general nineteenth century distaste for slavery: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24260354 )

E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hesse-Hanau_Troops_in_the_Amer... provided 2'400 troops out of an estimated 30'000 germans, suggesting the coalition of the billing must've been fairly large. https://www.lagis-hessen.de/de/subjects/xbrowse/sn/hetrina might contain better information.

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Animats5y ago

Yes. By the end of the Vietnam war, when the North Vietnamese entered Saigon, they did it with a tank assault.[1] The later phases of a guerilla war, if you win, have to involve taking and holding territory and taking over. In that phase it's no longer about hiding.

[1] https://apimagesblog.com/historical/2020/4/24/the-fall-of-sa...

aebtebeten5y ago

TIL "doing donuts" was a thing in both the capitalist (1st) and communist (2nd) worlds.

(also, about a predecessor to the Stinger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K32_Strela-2 )

Bonus clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2W1FFu4Z2mI (Strela being a polysemous term in russian, it can be used not only in a military sense, "arrow", but also in geographical, and, as this girl group embodies, an anatomical.)

OpticalWindows5y ago

I should have qualified it with *the beginning of the american revolution

I dont think many of the points you brought up refute guerlla warfare should not be compared to total war. I do think it's interesting to note that almot every country will continue guerlla warfare to wear down their friends and enemies. Iraq is a good example of this.

I'm curious what country you're from since you're using the apostrophy for the decimal separator "2'400"

082349872349872OP5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator#Examples_of_... ought to narrow it down. We're neither doubly landlocked, nor have we ever listed our entire country on Airbnb.

TIL about SI thin-spacing.

(Pedantically speaking, there's a large middle range between guerrilla warfare, irregular and asymmetric, and total warfare, in which instead of an economy with an army one has an army with an economy. Note that Clausewitz, whose ignorance of the twentieth century made him use Napoleonic France as an example of "total", considered total war, not as misattributed a desirable state, but as an asymptote. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24316395 )

PS. Assuming we're both under the same atmosphere, which windows: visible, mid-wave infrared, or radio?

OpticalWindows5y ago

Not pedantic at all and I would probably benefit from your knowledge. Interesting, I've never read Clausewitz.

So you're from SA eh? Always wanted to visit but no idea where to go.

I love all windows equally

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 points0823498723498725y ago0 comments

(that custom has been codified somewhat with the Geneva Conventions, but it remains to be seen how applicable these conventions are in the twenty-first century.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battles_of_Lexington_and_Conco...

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Animats5y ago

[1] https://apimagesblog.com/historical/2020/4/24/the-fall-of-sa...

aebtebeten5y ago

TIL "doing donuts" was a thing in both the capitalist (1st) and communist (2nd) worlds.

(also, about a predecessor to the Stinger: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/9K32_Strela-2 )

OpticalWindows5y ago

I should have qualified it with *the beginning of the american revolution

I'm curious what country you're from since you're using the apostrophy for the decimal separator "2'400"

082349872349872OP5y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decimal_separator#Examples_of_... ought to narrow it down. We're neither doubly landlocked, nor have we ever listed our entire country on Airbnb.

TIL about SI thin-spacing.

PS. Assuming we're both under the same atmosphere, which windows: visible, mid-wave infrared, or radio?

OpticalWindows5y ago

Not pedantic at all and I would probably benefit from your knowledge. Interesting, I've never read Clausewitz.

So you're from SA eh? Always wanted to visit but no idea where to go.

I love all windows equally

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse