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Old 07-30-2016, 10:41 PM   #41
jason taylor
 
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/93: Cops and Lawyers

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Originally Posted by safisher View Post
The Riot Police are not trying to kill people, and aren't using guns. They are using batons and shields. It's basically a medieval unit. The Dismounted Police Officers are troops armed with guns using their full firepower to inflict casualties. It's basically a Rifleman unit.



Makes perfect sense. They are poorly coordinated, untrained, and unarmed. A bad attitude and some rocks and bottles does not make a very good military unit.
It can make for a very good psychological warfare unit though.
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Old 07-31-2016, 05:12 AM   #42
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/93: Cops and Lawyers

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Originally Posted by safisher View Post
The Dismounted Police Officers are troops armed with guns using their full firepower to inflict casualties. It's basically a Rifleman unit.
Ah, OK. To UK sensibilities, a unit doing that isn't a police unit at all.
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Old 07-31-2016, 07:09 AM   #43
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/93: Cops and Lawyers

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Ah, OK. To UK sensibilities, a unit doing that isn't a police unit at all.
Not every organization has every unit represented. That's the same of police and of militaries.
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Old 07-31-2016, 07:54 AM   #44
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/93: Cops and Lawyers

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Disorganized civilians with no weapons, or mostly improvised weapons, are like terrible quality green troops, except terrible quality troops generally have the same idea of why they're out here today causing havoc, whereas rioters are notoriously not co-operating so much as acting randomly. Some are fighting "the man", some are tipping over random cars, some set garbage cans on fire, and some are looting and pillaging in a very traditional way. I don't think you can count anyone except the people fighting "the man" as actually helping.

Organized protestors are likely as not going to be a majority of noncombatants, and many of the combatants primary interest is going to be protecting noncoms. I had to wait for a protest march today in my city, and it was filled with a lot of elderly people, parents holding children, or families with walking-age children. Of the people in physical condition to engage in combat of any significance at a mass combat scale, many were parents with their spouses or children, or adult children with their elderly parents (or worst, adult children, with the grand-kids AND the elderly parents).

They were armed with nothing, or poster-board, or in the most generous cases, poster-board stapled to a stick (and two umbrellas, one of which was child-sized). They had nothing in the way of protective gear except the occasional bike helmet. Some had bikes, so I suppose there's a bit of a cavelry or scouting element, but that's generous for people who don't actually have weapons.

Either way, both types are known to be a problem because of vastly outnumbering their opposition, be it other mobs of citizens, cops of various types, or indeed soldiers. Citizens outnumbering cops 10-1 or 50-1 or 100-1 is not unheard of when things go pear-shaped.
Umm, the 'majority of noncombatants' aren't part of the riot unit, they're the logistics unit. They make molotovs, bring hot soup, buy tyres to burn, break the bricks, craft shields, pitch tents, report on the movement of cops, treat the wounded, film stuff and make it public etc. They're certainly far from an organized military, and do tactically suboptimal stuff from time to time, but basic organisational stuff still stands. (No, I wasn't a participant, but I've how rioter logistic trails look from close up firsthand, and that's what it looks like.)
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Old 07-31-2016, 10:26 AM   #45
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/93: Cops and Lawyers

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Originally Posted by johndallman View Post
Ah, OK. To UK sensibilities, a unit doing that isn't a police unit at all.
Dismounted Police Officers elements engaging in combat is extremely unusual almost anywhere. The elements even existing in the described form is uncommon.

But it's not like the article is limited to the probable, or describes normal policing activities. Policing proper isn't tactical combat at all and wouldn't be represented as such. A very small-sided engagement of SWAT or Dismounted Police vs. Gunmen or Terrorist Shooters is a modern policing concern, although not a common one (and police forces for this purpose do exist in the UK). Riot Police vs. Rioting Mob or potentially Organized Protesters also arises at times. Almost any Tactical Combat that isn't one of those two things means the situation has gone entirely off any sort of law enforcement rails.

(It also might be impossible to convert most UK police to Dismounted Police Officers due to them not having any firearms training? But that's kind of beside the point.)
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Old 07-31-2016, 01:58 PM   #46
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/93: Cops and Lawyers

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. . .

Strategy is the practice of defining what you need to get what you want in order to "win," whatever your definition of winning is.

Tactics are your actionable plans to get those things.


Source: General McChrystal.
I'd add a few things to it, including the operational level of combat:

1.) Tactics -- The use of firepower and movement to defeat/destroy enemy units in battle (and probably personnel) or seize key terrain to promote the former. Could also be seizure of key terrain for its own sake -- port of Cherbourg, for example . . .

2.) Operations: the use of battle and maneuver within a theater of operations to attain strategic objectives.

3.) Strategy -- the use of military force to gain national objectives.

4.) Policy -- deciding what are the #!%%! national objectives.
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Old 07-31-2016, 04:00 PM   #47
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/93: Cops and Lawyers

So, is there any utility for military urban combat in the Mass Combat article, or it is really just a collection of funky police, terrorist, and rioter units?
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Old 07-31-2016, 09:37 PM   #48
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/93: Cops and Lawyers

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The Riot Police are not trying to kill people, and aren't using guns. They are using batons and shields.
This^^^.

The difference between policing and warfare is critical and amazingly often overlooked by the naïve. In the vast majority of all such situations, the police are not trying to kill the rioters, they are trying to contain, restrain, repel, or otherwise break up the riot. They may want to divert the riot away from potential victims or important facilities, or contain it to one place.
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Old 07-31-2016, 09:47 PM   #49
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/93: Cops and Lawyers

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At least two of this issue's themes were supers-related my question is this: would there be enough clamour for a issue devoted to the topic and what would folks want to see? (Mods move this too a new thread if you feel the need).
well, I'd love another supers issue.

I am told, however, it had the worst sales :(
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Old 07-31-2016, 09:55 PM   #50
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Default Re: Pyramid #3/93: Cops and Lawyers

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So, is there any utility for military urban combat in the Mass Combat article, or it is really just a collection of funky police, terrorist, and rioter units?
It's really just a collection of units, plus the LEO modifier used for the police units. Basically does nothing if you want military-vs-military operations in urban terrain.
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