Posting a scenario where an infantry army needs to defeat a combined-arms army is exactly on topic. The fact that you don't like the political implications of my fictional scenario does not mean you can now derail the thread.
Actually they are similar in the sense they are both insurgencies. However your scenario is flawed in that you want a ratag ill disciplined volunteer force of twenty thousand to defeat an elite force of 5000 British troops with everything at their disposal in a pitched battle?.
Sorry but thats just not going to happen.
First of all lets look at the human factor.
1/ Desertion. As the battle day draws closer, a percentage of them will realise , being part of the UK is not that bad. Democracy and all it entails yada yada. So they quit
2/ On the eve of the battle many go off for a final fling or whatever, get so drunk that they forget to turn up for the battle.
The battle scene.
Under a fixed battle format we can assume each side knows where the other is. so lets say the battle is fought in a area of say 100sq miles.The British let the Scots advance thereby exposing themselves. They then call in the airforce and blast the living bejeezers out of the Scots.Depending how ruthless they want to be, they have also dropped those anti personnel bomblet things in the midsts of the advancing Scots plus a few of those Airfuel bomb thingys they obtained of the Americans and it would then be all over.
The casulty rate for the Scots ......... A.ll dead or severly wounded and dying . In comparison the British casulty rate is negligible.
And another thing in post 85
"Originally Posted by plawolf
Firstly, I think 20k light infantry against 5k combined arms force is a little on the light side on both sides. There is just no way a force of 5k can hope to secure and garrion a territory the size of scotland. I think 20k combined force and 200-400k light infantry would be more realistic.
( Your reply)The problem with that is it will inevitably turn into an insurgency discussion, which I wanted to avoid..................
The question then is, would it be possible for the Kiltland Rebels to outright defeat the Fishnchipsland expeditionary force? Note that by defeat, I don't mean waging a decades long insurgency until the Fishnchipsland army gets tired of fighting. Neither side is interested in garrisoning or occupying territory, only in defeating the other side. A victory for the Kiltland Rebels would be a huge symbolic victory and give enough pressure to Fishnchipsland to back off permanently."
An insurgency is neither a number s or duration game. Its simply a term used to describe a situation where
(from wiki) An insurgency is an armed rebellion against a constituted authority (for example, an authority recognized as such by the United Nations) when those taking part in the rebellion are not.
My point here being, no matter how you wish to prevent it, it is in a insurgency and people are entitled to treat your scenario as such.
What makes your scenario even more implaussible is your stipulation that neither side is interested in holding ground or creating garrisons. So what are the Scots doing then , standing around?. The more I think about it , the scenario would look more like 20000 stunned Celtic football fans exiting a football stadium , after being beaten by Rangers 10-0,
The only reason you posted that is to do some of your usual China-bashing.
Wrong .
To come to the above conclusion , you must have read quite a few of my threads.But perhaps you missed my comment in one of the threads concerning Xinjiang where I said i believe that the claim that it should be a independent homeland for the insurgents was contentious. (or something like that)
Therefore the possibility of my using it as aprextext to moralise about China's presence there would have been zip
