Reddit AmA: Director of the first ISP to challenge the USA Patriot Act

To put it simply everyone has access to liquor and fuel. From what I've read it still only seems to take 2-3 molotov cocktails to force the crew out of a tank (IIRC British crew were forced out of an APC from 3 hits that weren't visibly targeted), once the crew is out of the tank you either have a nice new tank, or access to munitions that can be used to your own advantage, or you simply killed 3 enemy combatants and a molotov inside the tank will ultimately render it useless or could potentially set off their ammunition and destroy the tank.

The military is armed to fight militaries. A tank, even a small unit of 20 men is no match for a guy on the 12th floor with a balcony lined with self-igniting molotovs. No weaponry on the tank can shoot him and a blanket bombing into the midst of the troops is going to kill most of them and the guy can be gone before any soldiers ever get to him (pulling the fire alarm disables elevators in most buildings, plus I doubt soldiers would ever trap themselves in an elevator when they've just been molotoved 5-seconds ago).

Over 80% of our populations live within urban areas, which in the US' case represents 2% of its land. Even given 1% of the population standing up to fight against their government would result in 2.4 million combatants in these urban areas, basically meaning insta-win for the guerillas as the US military only has 1.5 million active soldiers (I doubt you'd have 100% willing to fight against their own civilians, and I seriously doubt they'd manage to get 100% of the 1.4 million reservists to fight). Given the Finns lethality in the Winter War (6 soviet deaths/injuries to every 1 Finn; note this included the Soviets dropping cluster bombs). On the number of tanks the Finns destroyed ~100 tanks for every one they lost, so to put it simply the guerrillas likely destroyed near 3500 tanks with little formal hardware or weapons.

The thing that annoys me is that people think 'tank' and think its invincible from anything but a bigger badder weapon (IE a missile). Most tanks operate with their hatches open so they can see around themselves as they barely have any view from within the tank, which means a single hit with a molotov could potentially destroy the tank. A few of these attacks would mean all tanks would have their hatches closed, meaning operating blind when inside a city (they don't just have to see 360 degrees around themselves, but also 180 degrees above them).

Once the fighting starts, the civilians will have access to captured munitions. IE grenades, rifles and if they're lucky captured shells from a tank. Screw a molotov cocktail, a tank shell falling 10-stories would definitely be bye-bye to a tank.